After the War: The Extremists
by godfreyraphael
Summary: Thirteen years after the Yeerk War, voluntary Controllers are few and far between. Nothlits outnumber Yeerks by a large margin, and they've been feeling oppressed. A girl and her Yeerk are living a quiet life, but little do they know that they're living in the epicenter of the coming troubles between humans and nothlits. Now rated T for violence and terrorism.
1. The One Where I Introduce Myself

A/N: So I've been lurking around the Animorphs fanfictions for some time now, and I got inspired to make my own post-war Controller story. Now, my characters have been around ever since before I discovered FanFiction, and they've gone through so many iterations and permutations that they now bear little or no resemblance to the characters that I first made. The premise is basically the same: Controller and her Yeerk, living together years after the Yeerk invasion, but now I want to explore society as it is after the war. And I want to see how a voluntary Controller sees this world.

Obviously, this isn't my first fanfic, but like always, reviews and comments are appreciated!

**Edit: **Following suggestions made by Anifan and YPM-33-KI, I've decided to edit the conversation between Jen and Yemra. _Yemra's thought-speak is now in italics_, while ((Jen's thought-speak is now bracketed by double parentheses.))

Reviews and critiques are appreciated!

* * *

My name is Jennifer Carson.

My friends and family call me Jen. Sometimes, people call me Jennifer. Rarely, I have been called Jenny, but people don't use that name to call me because I don't like the sound of that name. My dad calls me Jenny sometimes, and by sometimes, I mean very rarely. Even my dad knows not to call me Jenny, because he knows that I hate that name.

Anyway, where was I? Right, I'm Jen Carson, just your average twenty-one-year-old. At least that's probably what you'd think if you happened to meet me. I'm just a regular girl in a t-shirt and jeans, although I do have some miniskirts and short shorts for when I'm feeling daring. But I'm not your average young adult girl. I'm not talking about my looks, although a lot of people have been telling me that I'm a dead ringer for Miley Cyrus, who I always thought was a pretty girl until she went and got that pixie haircut and began twerking and all that shit. And my eyes are of two different colors too, a condition known as heterochromia iridum. I mean, my right eye is blue, and my left eye is grey…

All right, the reason why I'm not your average girl is that I have something in my head. No, it's not a tumor; it's something of a more… alien… nature. Oh, all right, I'll come out and say it out loud. I have an alien in my head.

Now you're probably thinking, "Ah, now that's the real reason she's not a normal girl. She thinks she has an alien in her head!" First of all, let me just make it clear that I'm not crazy. I really do have an alien in my head. I even know what they're called: Yeerks. Yeerks are sluglike creatures that are blind, immobile out of any liquid environment, deprived of most other senses, and generally harmless. If a Yeerk wanted to see, hear, feel, smell, or move freely, it would have to go into another creature's head and take control of every function controlled by the brain, from sight to smell to touch to movement to everything else.

Like I said, harmless. The only problem with that is that they assumed that they have to forcefully come into any creature's brain, and then rob said creature of control of everything that it has. So, instead of asking nicely, they just assumed that they had the right to force themselves into the brains of other aliens, humans included. And that was why after they lost their invasion of Earth, they were now forced back into their natural sluglike forms, or worse, made to morph into an animal or a mix of humans, and then forced to stay in that form for two hours, after which they were now stuck in that form.

By now you're asking yourself, "If she has an alien slug in my head that can control her every moment, then how in the world can she tell me about it?" Well, that's the thing. Not all Yeerks are as evil as I may have presented them. Yemra's one of the good Yeerks.

That's her name, Yemra Six-Four-Zero. Neither I nor she has any idea what those three numbers at the end of her name mean. So, how did Yemra Six-Four-Zero get into my head? It's a story that goes back to when I was just eight or nine years old, give or take. I remember that it was near a river, and I was with my friends, skipping rocks on the water. The next thing I remember was that I had slipped on some slippery rocks on the shore, and I was lying motionless on the shore. My friends were trying to get me up and out, but someone probably told them that I shouldn't be moved until someone who was medically qualified had determined if my head or spine was damaged or whatever. Water flowed into my ears, or at least I thought it was water until I found out the truth much later.

Someone finally decided I was okay enough to be hauled out of the water, so my friends did. My mother, always the worrier, wanted to take me to the hospital and get treatment. Of course I didn't know an alien slug had made its way into my head at the time, so I told her that I was fine, and that I didn't need any medical attention. I finally got her to agree to put a big wad of gauze on the back of my head, and that was the end of it. At least, until we got home.

I had plopped down on my bed, my soft warm bed, and I didn't even bother taking off my shoes. As soon as my head hit my pillow, I found myself paralyzed all over. I couldn't move my arms, my legs, even my eyes. I was so afraid that this time I'd hit something vital in my head, and that I was going to die right inside my own room. My life literally flashed before my eyes. I know that it's a frigging cliché, but it really happened to me that time, I swear. Finally, the memories subsided, and I could move my body again. Yet something felt wrong to me. It was like there was a very short delay between the time my brain told my arm to move and my arm moving itself. It was fascinating, weird, and creepy at the same time.

I sat up on my bed and looked at my fingers. The weird thing was that I had not commanded myself to sit up and look at my fingers. Someone else was making my body move to its will, not mine.

_Please don't be afraid_, a voice inside my head said.

((What the—who are you!?)) I shouted, inside my head too. ((What are you doing inside my head!? What do you want with my body!?))

_Calm down, please. You have so many questions. I do not know which one I should answer first_.

((All right, then. Let's start with give me my body back!))

_If that is your wish_… And at that moment I felt my body return to my control. That was fine by me, but I still had to contend with the mysterious thing that had set up shop in my head.

((All right,)) I said. It felt so good, being able to use my mouth again on my own free will. ((Who are you?)) I asked the thing in my head. ((What are you?))

I heard the thing inside my head sigh, if such a thing were possible. _I am Yemra Six-Four-Zero of the Zek Danet Pool_, it said. _I am a Yeerk. Do you know what a Yeerk is?_

((Well, I have heard of them. They were these alien slugs that were doing some alien invasion thing in California, right?))

_Yes, that is right. The Yeerks had established a large Pool in the place you call California_.

((Wait a minute, though. We're very far away from California. How did you end up here?))

_The Yeerks had established a smaller Pool under your city, as we were expanding our invasion of your country_, the Yeerk in my head replied. _The residents of this Pool escaped while the larger Pool in California came under attack. Unfortunately, I missed the last ships out of the place, and I was forced to use the city's sewage system to get away from the Pool_.

Eww. I had an alien in my head that had gone through the sewers. I can only imagine the gunk and slime swimming in my head with my brain and this thing. How gross can it get, right?

_I was wondering if I could get your permission to cohabitate in your body_, the Yeerk said.

((You? Live with me in my body? Why? Give me a reason why.))

_You have heard about us Yeerks, yes? Then you must surely know that we have a limit which we must obediently observe, else it will lead to our death. It is our dependence on Kandrona rays. We must feed on Kandrona rays every three Earth days, or else we will die. I left the Pool in your city four days ago. Obviously, I am still alive, or else I would not be talking to you. Do you see my situation from my point of view? Here I am, having somehow discovered the key to Yeerk immortality without even knowing how I got it, and I am stuck in a body that cannot see, hear, smell, touch, or taste. In your human mythologies, there are stories of gods, powerful beings who give people what they said they wanted, not what they thought they should get. It is a very cruel joke, and though I do not believe in gods, it seems very possible that someone has seen fit to give me immortality while leaving me in such a literally senseless body_.

((And your point is…?))

_I was wondering if you could, you know, share your body with me. I do not want to spend the rest of my life blind, deaf, and unfeeling_.

((Wait a minute, now. Now you're the one who's asking too much from me. Can you at least get out of my head, and let me make my decision in private?))

_But I would still learn of your decision since I will have to go back into your head to know it, so isn't this "get out of my head" business moot?_

((Like I said, I want some privacy, miss,)) I said. I don't know why, but I was talking to this thing like it was a girl or something. ((Look, I don't want you knowing what I'm thinking even while I'm just thinking about it.))

_You can at least give me an aquatic environment that I can temporarily call home while you ponder your decision_, the Yeerk told me.

"Well, my bathroom does have a sink," I muttered to myself, aware that the Yeerk was listening in on my mental conversation. I plugged up the sink, filled it with water, and then I stared at it like I was some sort of fortune teller, trying to discern a message from the depths. ((Now what do I do?)) I asked.

_Put your head above the water, preferably with one of your ears tilted towards it. I could do it myself, but I don't want to take control of your body without your permission_.

((You're awfully polite for an alien mind-controlling slug, you know?)) I said. ((Wait, before you go, I want to know what your name is.))

_My name is Yemra Six-Four-Zero_.

((Okay. My name is Jennifer Carson. But you can call me Jen.))

_All right, Jennifer Carson; I am disengaging now_.

I felt the start of a dull pain in my ear, but the Yeerk released a painkiller that numbed the sensation of her traveling down my ear canal. Finally, I heard a soft splash. I turned and looked at what had wanted to make a home in my head.

Let me be honest and say that a Yeerk is not the prettiest sight in this universe. It was three inches of greenish-gray flesh with two stalks right where the eyes should be, and three pairs of tiny flippers. No wonder people didn't want Yeerks in their heads. Their looks alone were enough to mess people up.

But I also saw something else in Yemra Six-Four-Zero in that first moment that I laid eyes on the real her. Maybe because I realized that she was very vulnerable in her natural state. I can only imagine what she went through for the four days that she had to swim from the sewers to the river. An image of Yemra almost being swallowed by a fish suddenly entered my mind, and at that moment, I made my decision.

I picked up Yemra from the water in my sink and slowly, tentatively, put her next to my ear. She shot out of my hand so fast, she must have been eager to get back in my head. _Ah, I see the reason why you finally made your decision_, she said once she had made her connections with my brain. _And let me tell you that I _was_ indeed almost eaten by a fish, but I miraculously got away before it could close its jaws around me_.

((Well, I'm glad that you liked the reason for my decision,)) I said. ((But if you're going to stay in my head, I want to lay down some rules first. First, no hijacking control of my body unless I let you. You're just an observer in my head. Second, I don't want to become involved in yet another plot to take over the world. Okay?))

_Ahahaha!_ Yemra laughed. _Those are your conditions?! Oh, all right, Jennifer Carson. I accept these terms of yours pertaining to my residence in your body, blah, blah, blah. My only condition is that you keep my existence a secret_.

((You've got a good sense of humor yourself, Yemra Six-Four-Zero,)) I said. ((I've got a feeling we're going to be good friends.))

I never thought of myself as a clairvoyant, but my words that day were strangely prophetic, as Yemra and I did indeed become the best of friends, but we had a deal in which I wouldn't really try to show her off to other people, especially after the government made the Yeerks left on Earth to choose between becoming a human or animal _nothlit_—whatever that means. I did try to introduce Yemra to my parents, much to her displeasure, and while they were not really keen on their only daughter being infested by one of the aliens that tried to take over the world, they didn't really mind Yemra being in me, and they didn't pursue the matter further. My other friends were more curious than my parents, though, but only two of them, Julia Baker and Carina Russolini, stuck for the big finale. I could still remember the looks of pain, disgust, shock, and awe on their faces when they saw Yemra coming out of my ear. Jules—Julia's preferred nickname—even managed to summon the courage to poke Yemra, and then she asked if she could have Yemra in her head, even just for a short while.

"Are you crazy?" Carina asked Jules. "What if that thing takes control of you and tries to kill us all?"

"Oh, grow up, Carina," Jules told her. "If that thing had wanted to kill us, then it would have already done that while it was still in Jen's head." And she reached out, took Yemra in her hand, and put her next to her ear. Soon, Yemra was staring at us through Julia's eyes.

"This is so amazing! With a Yeerk in your head, you can hold a real conversation with a real person in your mind!" And Jules said more words to that effect. Finally, Jules declared her little experiment to be over, and she returned Yemra to me. I gave Carina one last chance to try having Yemra in her head, but she declined once again. I probably would, too, if I was in her place.

I discovered yet another thing about Yemra when she got back in my head after getting into Jules's head. Everything that Jules had in her brain, everything up to the moment she gave Yemra back to me, I now had in my brain, too. Of course I didn't tell this to Jules or anyone else, because hey, sometimes there are secrets you have to keep even from your friends.

So yeah, that basically sums up my life: I'm a girl with a Yeerk living inside my head. So, basically, teenage stuff with a healthy dose of sarcastic alien. And for thirteen years, I managed to keep Yemra and her secret safe with me. But then something happened to me; something that will totally change the way I look at Yeerks, Controllers, the _nothlit_s, and people in general.

I survived a plane crash.


	2. The One Where the Plane Crashes

A/N: So I've looked at the reviews posted to my story, and let me just say, thank you for the interest. And now, moving on to the suggestions…

To Anifan: Yes, I have noticed that if Jen was indeed just five or six at the conclusion of the Yeerk invasion, then she would indeed sound too old for her age. I originally wrote this story with Jen as an eight or nine-year-old when Yemra first infests her, and for some reason I decided to change it at the last minute, and now obviously it's cost me a little bit. So I've made the necessary edits in the first chapter.

To YPM-33-KI: Rereading my fic, I realized that even though I know which sentences are spoken out loud and which sentences are though-spoken, it would be very confusing for the average reader. So I've also updated my first chapter with the appropriate edits. And all subsequent chapters will follow said new formatting, which is:

_Yemra's thought-speak is in italics._

((Jen's thought-speak is bracketed in double parentheses.))

Once again, reviews and critiques are appreciated!

* * *

I don't know what got into Dad when he said that he was going to take us on a vacation to DC. Certainly wasn't a Yeerk, but that's beside the point, actually. Dad was going to take us all to DC to see the sights, and he was going to take us there by plane. Not a private plane—we don't have enough money to even dream about owning a private plane—but a commercial plane. But even then… Come on, Dad. Plane tickets don't come cheap these days, and I know for a fact that my Dad is the cheapest bastard in existence. He probably decided to sell all those shares from Apple that he bought back when he was still in college. When I asked him about it, he didn't say anything to confirm or deny it. So that means he did it. Dad is so predictable.

Anyway, my Mom, never one to pass up an opportunity to take a breather from the rat race, immediately took advantage of "whatever it was that Dad did," meaning she took a lot of the money that Dad had earned selling those old Apple stocks, and got us to every possible tourist destination in the capital, from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial to the White House. Dad, never one to plan ahead, didn't buy round-trip tickets, so when we had to go home, we had to fly home on a low-cost airline that no one else has heard of.

At least the airplane we boarded was nice. Sure, it was this old plane with two engines in the back, but at least the airline made every effort to make it look like it was brand new. According to the in-flight magazine, the plane we were on right now was a McDonnell-Douglas MD-83, whatever that is. There were two cabin crewmembers "to serve us all our needs and wants." The first one was a middle-aged guy who looked like Mr. Sikowitz from _Victorious_, and the second one was a woman who looked like Clara Oswald from _Doctor Who_. The guy handled the speaking part of the necessary safety briefing thing, while the girl did the visual demonstrations, like putting on the life vest and the oxygen mask and that kind of thing. You know what I'm talking about.

This being only my second time flying in an airplane, taking off was an exciting experience for me. As I felt my body being pressed to the back of my seat by the plane's acceleration, Yemra chose that moment to give me her two cents. _This is nothing, Jen,_ she said. _You want to feel real acceleration, try taking a Bug fighter from the surface right up to space!_

((Really?)) I asked her. ((You've done that?))

_You wouldn't want to know._

((I'll take your word for it,)) I told her, just as I felt a hook in my navel trying to bring me back down to the ground. Then the plane's wheels finally lifted off of the runway, and I felt the pulling sensation in my belly vanish.

_Oh, I love flying_, Yemra said. _You know, Jen, I've always wondered what the Animorphs felt whenever they went flying using their bird morphs. I mean, you know, there is definitely a vast difference between taking to the skies in a big metallic tube, and flying in your own wings and feathers. It must be a very special experience_.

((I don't know, Yemra,)) I replied. ((I've never morphed a bird before, so I can't tell you anything about such an experience. Actually, to tell you the truth, I've never morphed anything my whole life. But that's probably just because I don't have the ability to morph in the first place.))

"Can I give you ladies anything?" the stewardess asked as she arrived at our row. She even had the British accent down pat. Maybe she _is_ a subject of Her Majesty, after all. I wonder why she wants to live among the colonials.

"I'd like some hot chocolate, if you've got it," Mom told her. Mom always liked to make herself some hot chocolate whenever she was nervous. Sort of like her comfort food or something. And flying always made her nervous, even though she keeps saying that they've made flying much safer than driving, whoever _they _were.

"Excellent choice, ma'am," the stewardess said. "And what about you, miss?"

"I'm all right," I replied.

"All right, then," the stewardess said. "I'll be here with your hot chocolate shortly." And with that, she left us for the next row of passengers. As she walked away, Yemra said, _Five bucks says that she's a Controller, too_.

((What? Really?)) I asked her back. ((How are you supposed to know that about her?))

_I've got a sixth sense, Jen_, Yemra replied. _That's what you humans call it, right?_

((Man, I'm not even gonna ask. Besides, you don't even have the hands to hold a single cent, let alone five bucks.))

Yemra laughed heartily in my head. _I had to try, Jen. That's perseverance for you. But seriously, though, Jen, she's another Controller, too._

((Oh. You think she's voluntary?))

_Duh! These days, you humans would have to want to be host to a Yeerk before your authorities would even let infestation occur._

((I wonder when she was infested, though,)) I said. ((Was it during the invasion, or after? Did she choose to be infested?))

_I don't know. Maybe you should ask her. I'm a mind-controlling alien, not a mind-reading one._

((Oh, no. That would be rude, Yemra. But you're wrong about one thing. You can read minds. Except you can read only my mind.))

I yawned, physically. ((I am tired,)) I said mentally. ((Yemra, if you want to have control, then you've got it. I need a break.))

_Really?_ Yemra asked me in a very fake sweet voice. _Oh, Jennifer Carson, you're the best host a Yeerk could ever ask for!_

((Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah.)) But inside, I was smiling widely. Yemra and I went through this kind of conversation too many times to count that it's become almost of a ritual between the two of us. She teases me, I tease her, rinse and repeat, and in the end, we end up still stuck with each other. But we both like it that way.

I leaned back in my seat and watched silently as Yemra took control of my body. After having spent the better part of thirteen years in my head, Yemra now knew every nook and cranny of my brain in such a way that it took her only the blink of an eye to take full control of my body. It was, is, and always will be a disconcerting concept; the thought that the body that you were born with, the flesh and bones that make up the physical you, were now under the control of an intergalactic interloper. It's probably one of the reasons, if not _the_ main reason, why people thought Yeerk infestation was one of the worst things that could ever happen to them. I mean, sure, during the invasion, there were Yeerks who took a perverse pleasure in mentally, beating, breaking, and torturing their hosts just for the fun of it. But just because some Yeerks did it doesn't mean all Yeerks will do it. That's generalization, and sometimes, it's bad.

You know what? If only people were more willing to trust Yeerks, then maybe all this brouhaha with the invasion and the forced _nothlits_ wouldn't have happened. Then again, if only the Yeerks had asked nicely, and if they hadn't thought that they were entitled to see the world through other beings' eyes and ears, then maybe _that_ was how the entire brouhaha would have been prevented. It's just a matter of entrusting your body to someone else.

Besides, when you think about it, Yemra trusts me with her body. Her small, squishy, sluglike body.

_Hey!_ Yemra said. _I heard you think that!_

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. I was now just a spectator inside my own body. It doesn't bother me or creep me out as much as it used to the first few times that Yemra did it. So there I was, watching as Yemra took the in-flight magazine and began reading. The stewardess finally returned with Mom's hot chocolate, Mom thanked her, and the stewardess left to "serve the needs and wants" of the other passengers. "So," Mom asked "me," "what do you think of DC?"

"It was okay," Yemra replied, using my voice to speak. "I like it, mostly. Some of them looked bigger in pictures than in real life, I guess. Like the Washington Monument."

"Got anything like those up there?" Mom pointed upwards, to either the roof of the plane or the sky.

Yemra turned my—our—head to face Mom. "What?" she asked.

"Oh, please," Mom replied. "Jen reading that magazine instead of playing with her phone or sleeping? I know that's you, Yemra."

Remember when I said that I tried to introduce Yemra to my mom and dad when I was young? Well, they didn't believe me at first, until I showed them Yemra literally coming out of my ear. Needless to say, they've been tolerating her presence in me for thirteen years now.

"All right," Yemra conceded. "You got me fair and square, Mrs. Carson. Is that how you use that phrase correctly?"

Man, it must be weird for Mom to look at me and know that an alien slug is controlling my body, moving my lips, and looking at her through my eyes. Yeah, it wigged her out for the first few months after she found out about me and Yemra, but eventually she got used to it. At least I think she got used to it. I don't know.

"Oh, come on, Yemra," Mom said. "I'm sure you've called me 'Mom' for as many times as you've pretended to be Jen. And besides, you've been with Jennifer for like, what, thirteen years? You're almost like a daughter and a family member to me already. You've got all the right in the world—well, this world at least—to call me your mother, because you're as good as a daughter to me."

"Oh, wow," Yemra stammered. "I, I, I, I don't know what to say, honestly. Sure, I have my Pool-brothers and Pool-sisters, but only through the biological process of my species. But I have never experienced being accepted into a familial unit just because they want me to become one of them. So, thank you, I guess, Mom."

Mom patted my knee. "That's the spirit," she said. "Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes. Yemra, do you have any kind of monuments, or architectural wonders, or anything of that sort, from your species? Do you have any monuments or memorials up in space?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Yemra replied. "We may have erected a few simple structures through our Gedd hosts back on our homeworld, but I wasn't born there, so I have no idea if that's true. The Taxxons and the Hork-Bajir probably also have their own monuments, but obviously they're not counted as part of the Yeerks anymore. And unless I finally set foot on the home world, then all I can do is guess."

"Wow," Mom said as she took Yemra's response in. "Have you thought about being a writer or a poet?"

"I've never really thought about it," Yemra replied. "I suppose I could try, but I would have to do it myself, because Jen here wouldn't be able to write a poem to save her life."

Mom laughed. "Oh, Yemra, that is so true," she said.

((For once, my Mom and I have agreed on something,)) I told Yemra. ((And yeah, I really can't write poetry, even shitty poetry, if it could save my life. I can spin a good yarn myself, but poetry… at least I got you, right?))

_Oh, Jen, you can be such a bitch_, Yemra replied. _That's why I love being with you._

Now it was Yemra's turn to yawn. "I'm tired, too," she told Mom, still using my voice. "I am going to take a nap with Jen."

"You do that," Mom said. "I know the both of you will need your rest."

Yemra closed my eyes, and after what felt like just a single second but was actually forty minutes, at least according to my watch, I felt a popping sensation in my ears that told me that the plane was beginning to descend. As I sat up, I realized that I was back in control of my body, and that therefore Yemra must still be sleeping. While I was stretching my arms, the pilot came onto the PA system and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are beginning our descent in preparation for landing. Please fasten your seatbelts and take care to not remove them until after the fasten seatbelts light has been turned off, and the plane has landed. Thank you, and once again, thank you for flying with Regional Air. We hope to fly with you again."

"Oh, finally," I muttered. Yemra may enjoy flying, but I personally prefer having my feet on solid ground. However, just as I fastened my seat belt and let out a sigh of relief, something went very, very wrong.

I heard a loud boom from somewhere to the back of the plane. Immediately after that, everyone in the cabin was blasted by the whine of the engines, as their sound now had a clear pathway to all of the passengers' ears. Also, while I should have known better, I turned around to look at what happened at the back of the plane. And I immediately regretted doing it in the first place.

There was a big hole in the side of the plane's fuselage. Two seats were simply gone, while the seats in front of and behind those vanished seats were now smoldering with small fires. And I think there might even be a hole on the cabin floor.

"Oh, my God," I muttered. "Somebody tried to bomb us." At that moment, I felt like the microscopic speck of sentient dust that I was in the perspective of the whole universe. I was just a tiny nanometer mote of dust that the universe was free to play with until it got bored and decided to throw me away. Now I was about to die, and my mom and my dad and everyone else on this plane were going to die with me. The words just came tumbling out of my mouth. "Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit!"

_Jen!_ Yemra shouted mentally. She must have been woken up either by the explosion or my outburst about excrement. _What happened?_ She took just an instant to peruse my most recent memories. _Okay, stay calm now, Jen_, she said. _This is of no concern._

"No concern?" I yelled out loud. "Our plane has got a fucking hole on its side!"

"Are you all right?" Mom asked me. She's probably trying to ignore the fact that I just practically shouted the F-word to the whole plane.

"Yemra is," I replied. "I'm not!"

"All right, Jen, sweetie, just take my hand," Mom said, "and take a few deep breaths." I took Mom's hand with my own, and began breathing slowly. "Just like giving birth, right, Mom?" I asked.

"Yeah," she replied. "Except for the actual giving birth thing."

_All right, Jen,_ Yemra said, _just do what your Mom's telling you, while I work on trying to control your heart rate and stopping the adrenaline from flooding your veins._

And so it went for about two minutes, with me breathing as slowly as I could while clutching my mom's hand in a sort-of death grip, and Yemra trying her best to stop my heart from jackhammering through my chest. And, as if it couldn't get any worse, I began to hear human screaming from the back of the plane.

_Don't look, Jen! Don't look!_ Yemra shouted at me. Mom echoed Yemra's sentiments, even though I was sure she had no idea that that was exactly what Yemra was telling me. But of course I had to turn around and look. The stewardess was half-standing, half-kneeling on one of the remaining seats that had survived the explosion. Across the gaping, mangled chasm that the explosion had made on the cabin floor stood the steward, leaning on one of the other intact seats for support. He was holding out his hand, offering it to the trapped stewardess. "Donna!" he shouted. "Take my hand!"

"I can't, Nick!" the stewardess shouted back. "I'm scared!"

"Look, Donna, I'm here! I'm here to help you, okay? Just take my hand and jump!"

((If she _is_ a Controller,)) I asked Yemra, ((is she the host really scared, or is she the Yeerk just that good of an actor?))

_Now's not the time, Jen!_ Yemra shouted.

My eyes were glued to the drama unfolding in front of my eyes now. I couldn't help but watch as the stewardess finally gathered the courage to move from the seat she was currently calling sanctuary and step onto the seat immediately in front of her. And then she stepped onto the seat in front of that seat, if you can still follow me. Finally, she was within arm's distance of the steward, and she took his outstretched hand. Then she made a leap of faith, and jumped towards the waiting arms of the steward. The two of them landed in a tangle of limbs on the cabin floor. I breathed out a sigh of relief, having just realized that I was holding my breath while watching the two of them.

Now that the fun part was over, I could now sit back in my seat and… well… try to make my peace, I guess. I was born and raised a Roman Catholic, but I've never been the praying type. But now, maybe, I should have prayed a little bit more. No, I'm just kidding. I should have prayed a _lot_ more, because apparently whoever's in charge upstairs had decided that it's time for everyone on this plane to die. So now I just said, "God, if it's my time, then it's my time. I just hope it will be quick and painless."

_And if Jen dies_, Yemra added, _I want to die with her too_. I understood her wish, from her point of view. If I died, and she survived, then she would be stuck inside the head of a lifeless corpse. Not the best place for a Yeerk to be.

If we weren't in a life-or-death situation, I would have teased Yemra by telling her that she was so sweet.

_Yeah, Jen, I'm so sweet I make your teeth rot upon just first contact_, Yemra said. Okay, so apparently I can still tease Yemra even in a life-or-death situation.

I looked out the window, probably just to see how close we were to dying. I noticed a road somewhere in the distance on the ground that seemed to be rapidly closing on the plane, as if it was eager to claim its latest victim. I recognized that road as the one that was just a few hundred meters from the runway of the municipal airport. Seeing that road lit a small spark of hope in my heart. Maybe we were gonna make it through this situation alive, after all.

But life—that fickle bitch!—immediately found a way to extinguish the small spark of hope in my heart. Just as I thought that we had a fighting chance of getting out of this situation alive, the ground seemed to come up even faster than was supposed to be possible. The road came nearer to us, in every sense of the word. In the few moments before the plane crossed the road—now that sounds like the start of a bad joke—I saw a bus travelling down that road. And as I looked at that bus, seemingly unaware that a plane was bearing down on it, all I could think about was that we were gonna crash into that bus before we crashed into the ground. Was Death trying to fill a quota of dead people today?

Just before the plane collided with the bus, I heard the engines begin to whine louder as they were commanded to provide the plane with more thrust. Also, the pilots began lifting up the nose of the plane to give us more altitude, but it was no use. I heard a horrible crunching noise as metal crashed against metal, and I had to command myself to not think about the carnage that surely occurred when the plane met the bus in the worst possible way. I immediately assumed the crash position, just as I heard the steward shouting "Brace!" through the whine of the engines. Beside me, I felt Mom assuming the crash position too, and I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable.

I heard another horrible crunching sound, this time caused by the impact of metal on soil. It was one of the most painful sounds ever to have been made, second only to fingernails scratching a blackboard, and quite possibly beating even that. I almost flew out of my seat as the plane encountered a bump on the ground, but my seatbelt kept me firmly on my seat. I heard another spine-chilling noise, this time caused by the groaning of the metal making up the plane as the fuselage was put through its absolute limits. And then everything seemed to slow down as the tail end of the plane finally tore itself away from the rest of the fuselage, and my ears began ringing as the whine of the engines finally cut off.

The plane—what was left of it, anyway—hit another bump on the ground, and I felt my head strike something really, really hard. I felt only a brief flicker of white-hot pain at the top of my skull before the darkness swallowed me up.


	3. Yemra Meets a Friend, or Does She?

A/N: Sorry for the late update, but I've been busy with other things. Anyways, here's chapter three! Oh, and do leave a review if you liked my story, and leave a review if you didn't like it, because I really want to know what you guys think of my story! Enjoy.

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My name is Yemra Six-Four-Zero, of the Zek Danet Pool.

I finally woke up from the depths of unconsciousness, but I might as well still be unconscious because I was still surrounded by darkness. Either my host had gone blind, or I had been disconnected from her brain by the force of the crash of their aerial transport. The situation seemed to be the latter option, because if Jen were indeed blinded by the crash, I would still be able to feel stimuli from her other senses. Instead, I literally could not sense anything, except for something underneath me tingling with inviting microvolts of electricity. At least I was still in Jen's skull. That was a comforting thought, considering the alternative. I could be on the ground, outside the safety and protection of Jen's cranium, and one of those human "paramedics" could crush me under their feet. Now that was not a good way to die.

So it was with that not-so-comforting thought that I made—or remade, however you want to think about it—a tentative connection to her brain.

I managed to open Jen's eyes. (Jen says that they were my eyes as much as they were hers, but for all intents and purposes, I still think of them as Jen's eyes.) The colors of Earth overwhelmed my Yeerk brain once again, even though I should already be used to them as I've been living here for the better part of thirteen Earth years. Oh, thank the Kandrona, and thank God, Jen's God, that she wasn't blind! Honestly, out of all the senses of the human body, I valued sight the most. If Jen had indeed become blind, I don't know how I would deal with it.

Yes, I am that selfish, in that I care more about myself than Jen. But, truth be told, deep down, we both know that I care deeply about her, just as much as she cares about me.

But I was getting distracted once again. I had Jen's sight, sure, but what about her other senses? So I sent out another connection to Jen's brain, and found Jen's presence, metaphorically curled up in a "fetal position." Thank the Kandrona Jen was alive, too. I was going to let her rest for quite a while longer now.

Slowly, but surely, I restored my connections to Jen. Finally, I had regained full control of her body. After that… well, let's just say that I had no idea of what to do after that.

First things first, Jen always liked to say. And the first thing that I did was to take stock of my surroundings. I was still in my seat, but that seat was currently somewhere outside of the body of the plane. I accessed Jen's memories on how to "unbuckle" the "seatbelt." I did it slowly, as my left arm seemed to hurt with every movement that I made. It was probably broken, so that was the first bit of bad news for Jen. She would have to have it checked later.

I finally unbuckled the seatbelt with much difficulty, and I rolled onto the ground, wincing as I made the mistake of putting weight on my injured arm.

I stood slowly, and very carefully, as my whole body felt like it was radiating pain in waves. It took me a few moments to balance myself on Jen's two legs. How these humans managed to stand, let alone move around, on just two legs without even a tail for support or counterbalance still astounded me, even after all my years of living and interacting with them. Now that I was standing, sort of, I could take a better look at my surroundings.

Jen's seat was somewhere in the middle of a trail of debris stretching from the tail of the aircraft to the rest of the plane, which was mostly intact, and resting somewhere a few hundred Earth meters from where I was standing right now. I could barely make out a few figures moving along the wreckage, and I began slowly walking my way towards them. I must have looked like one of those human "zombies," the way that I was shambling towards them.

I stumbled on a rock that I had not noticed, and fell. I tried to cushion my fall with my hands, only belatedly remembering that my left arm was broken. Fresh waves of pain radiated from my left arm, spreading throughout the rest of my body. "Oh, God!" I moaned. "That hurts!"

I think that I might have gained Jen's near-insufferable ability to state the plainly obvious.

Through the pain, I noticed a lone figure making its way towards me. As it got nearer, I saw that it was actually the stewardess. She had taken off her scarf and her vest, so now she was just wearing a white long-sleeved blouse, and her uniform skirt. Also, she had taken off her shoes, so now she was running towards me with just her stockings on her feet.

"Oh, God, you're alive!" the stewardess said as she approached me. "We've got another live one here!" she shouted. "Are you all right?"

"Not really," I replied honestly. "My left arm's broken."

"All right, then, let me help you up." She took hold of my right arm, and I used her as leverage to haul myself up from the ground. Pain radiated from a thousand places on my body. I must be black and blue all over, to coin the human term. I cradled my left arm to my side as the stewardess hooked my right arm over her shoulders, and she put her left hand on my waist to support me.

With her head so close to mine, I could feel something about her that made the hairs at the back of my neck stand up, although technically Yeerks don't have hairs or necks, but you know what I'm talking about. It's this sixth sense in which a Yeerk can tell if there's another Yeerk in a potential host body, although I've heard that only some Yeerks have this so-called "Yeerk sense." Oh, yeah, I was right. This stewardess was another human-Controller.

"So, is she voluntary?" the stewardess asked.

"So, you can also sense me too?" I replied. When she looked at me with a look that Jen would have called "a face," I continued, "Of course she's voluntary! They're the only reason why we're still allowed to stay on their planet. How about yours?"

"What do you think?" she replied. "Any human who wanted to host a Yeerk would have to go through 'hell and back,' so to speak, before their government would even think about allowing a Yeerk to infest that human."

"What's your name?" I asked, out of genuine curiosity.

"Sinan One-Nine-Five of the Sulp Niar Pool," she replied. "My host's name is Belladonna Spencer, but she likes to be called Donna."

"Nice to meet you, Sinan," I said. "I am Yemra Six-Four-Zero, of the Zek Danet Pool. My host's name is Jennifer Carson, but she prefers to be called Jen."

"Really?" Sinan asked. "Donna would have thought that your host was a Jenny type of girl."

"Oh, please!" I snorted. "Don't let her catch you calling her Jenny. For some reason she really hates being called by that name. The last time someone called her Jenny… well, you had to be there."

"I'll take your word for it," Sinan replied. "So, the Zek Danet Pool, huh? I can't say that I've met many Yeerks from that Pool."

"I know, right?" I said. "Most of the Yeerks I've encountered have been from either Hett Simplat or Sulp Niar, like you. Anyway, how did you end up here? And with Donna?"

"There's nothing much to tell about my being here, Yemra, really," Sinan replied. "I was one of many hostless Yeerks that the humans captured in the Pool underneath this city. I had infested by a Gedd, a Hork-Bajir, and a human before I was reassigned here, but when my former hosts were asked if they wanted to be reinfested by me, they all refused. So I remained without a host for many cycles, until finally Donna came along. She had wanted to have a companion, someone she could tell all of her secrets, problems, and desires. I just wanted to see, hear, and feel the world again. And you know what? Despite our differences in wanting a host and a Yeerk, we've got a good friendship going for us."

"That story of yours is actually worth telling, Sinan," I told her. "And to think that all I wanted from Jen was a body to live in. All that friendship and bonding stuff just came along later on. I was very lucky that I got Jen just before the war ended." Now I was really glad that Jen was still unconscious right now. She didn't have to see me twisting the facts about how we met. Nobody else had to know that I was a Yeerk that could survive for more than three days without Kandrona rays.

"Well, at least you weren't one of those holdouts who tried to hide themselves amongst the humans when the invasion force was defeated," Sinan muttered.

"Really? Why is that?"

"After the end of the war, all Yeerks still within the territory of the so-called 'United States' were rounded up and brought out to 'internment camps' in the middle of the place the humans called 'Arizona,' to sort out the Imperialist Yeerks from those were with the Peace Movement, and those Yeerks who just want to have senses and experience the world. But some Yeerks managed to escape the dragnet, and tried to hide themselves among the mostly-unsuspecting humans, who thought that _all_ Yeerks were down safely locked up in the internment camps, so to speak. Nevertheless, the humans got suspicious, and Yeerk-hunting mobs sprang up all over the States. These mobs tried various ways of removing the holdout Yeerks from their hosts: they beat the hosts almost to death; they tried various chemicals that nearly killed both the Yeerks and their hosts. Eventually, they discovered that sustained application of an electric current through a device known as a 'taser' was most effective in forcing the Yeerk to involuntarily exit its host."

All this information was news to me, both because I've never experienced such things, and because Jen was too young to be interested in the news during those early days of post-invasion Earth. Also, the Yeerk surrender happened just a few months before human terrorists attacked their fellow humans on September 11, 2001; apparently in some kind of ancient religious conflict that a human that was thousands of miles away from the United States believed was still going on. The events following the 9/11 attacks almost totally overshadowed the aftermath of the Yeerk invasion, and human attentions were turned towards American actions against a nation called Afghanistan. The Yeerks were almost totally forgotten—except apparently for those who still believed that their family and friends were still under the influence of the evil mind-controlling, body-snatching aliens.

"Wow," I told Sinan. "This is all new to me. How come I never heard of it?" Sinan's reply all but confirmed my suspicions that despite having been just attacked by aliens from beyond their own system, humans would still never pass up a chance to kill their own kind. It almost makes me wonder why the Vissers thought they were Class Fives instead of the Class Fours they truly were.

"Now I'm really thankful that I didn't try to hide myself," I said. Which wasn't entirely accurate, because, like I said earlier, I don't want the human government to learn that there was a Yeerk out there that could survive without Kandrona rays for more than three days. Also, being electrocuted for a sustained duration? No, thank you.

We finally stumbled our way back to the gaggle of survivors gathered around the front part of the aircraft. "Time to act like your host again," Sinan muttered. I mumbled my agreement.

I saw Jen's mother leaning on Jen's father, who was himself leaning on the plane. Once Jen's mother saw me, she ran over to me and wrapped her arms around my—Jen's—body. Jen called this human interaction a "hug," and she always felt embarrassed whenever her mother did this to her. But now that I was experiencing it myself, I could see nothing in this act which could possibly cause embarrassment.

"Oh, Jen!" Mrs. Carson said. "Thank God you're alive! Your father and I were absolutely worried about you! We thought you were dead when we couldn't find you on the plane!"

"She was hysterical," Mr. Carson chimed in. "I was just worried." Apparently, this was typical human parental behaviour, or at least it was typical behaviour for Jen's parents. According to Jen, her mother's role was to blow everything that happened to her way out of proportion, while her father's role was to downplay everything that happened as just unfortunate coincidence.

"Are you okay?" Mrs. Carson asked me. I still couldn't bring myself to call her "Mom" when I'm speaking for myself, but apparently I can do it very well when I'm talking to her as Jen. "Are you hurt? Are you still… you?"

I knew where she was going with this line of inquiry. A right-eyed wink meant that Jen was in control. A left-eyed wink meant that I was in control. So I quickly closed and opened my left eye while saying, "I'm okay; don't worry about me." Mrs. Carson nodded her head in acknowledgment and said, "Well, at least you're all right."

I don't know if she was actually worried about me as Yemra, or whether she's just concerned about Jen. Not that I blame her, though.

((Oh, man,)) Jen said as she finally regained consciousness in the back of my mind. ((All right, Yemra, time for me to get back in control,)) she told me. ((It's my body now.))

_Wait a minute_, I told her. _Wait for it, wait for it…_ And then Mrs. Carson wrapped me in another hug. "Oh, I'm just so happy that you made it," she said.

((Oh, Yemra, I am so wishing for you to go to hell for this!)) Jen said. But far from being a condemnation of my eternal soul to the all-consuming fires of the human underworld, it was just an expression of Jen's that she likes to say whenever "things are not going her way." ((All right, now you're just trying to embarrass me,)) Jen sighed.

_And… that should be good enough_, I said. _Have fun!_ I told Jen as I returned control of her body to her. I watched silently, wearing a big mental "shit-eating" grin as Jen tried to squirm her way out of her mother's embrace. "All right, Mom, that's enough," she said. "I'm back now!" She even winked her right eye for effect.

((Oh, God, my arm hurts!)) Jen shouted mentally at me. ((Why didn't you bother to tell me that my arm was broken?!)) she demanded.

_You didn't ask me_, I replied.

((Bitch,)) Jen muttered mentally, and then out loud, she said, "Okay, Mom, now you're hurting my arm!"

"What?" Jen's mom turned to face her properly. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Well, somebody decided that it wasn't important enough to tell you!" Jen replied. ((Yes, Yemra, I'm looking at you!)) she told me.

_Oh, you_, I told her. _I'm sure it will heal._

Far away in the distance, we could hear the sirens which signalled the coming of the human "paramedics." It looked like we were now finally going to be fine, but Sinan's words about the holdout Yeerks and how they were treated by the humans stuck to me. And there was also the matter of those internment camps in which the majority of the planetbound Yeerks were held immediately after the war. Something really bothered me about these things. I guess I would just have to ask Jen to help me look deeper into these things later.

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A/N: And that's the end of chapter 3! Hopefully you will leave behind a review telling me what you think. Also, if you have suggestions, do leave behind a review, because even though the world in which my fic is set in is mostly complete already, I'm still willing to hear comments! Yes, anyways, read and review!


	4. Classes of Yeerk and Hork-Bajir Rights

A/N: And I'm back! Sorry in advance if this chapter barely advances the plot, I just write my stories as they come! Hopefully next chapter the wheels will get going again! Once again, leave a review if you liked it, and leave a review even if you didn't!

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_**Jen**_

I opened the beer can, or at least tried to open it with difficulty as my left arm was in a cast and I had to put the can between my thighs so that I could get some leverage on it. But finally, I did manage to get it open, and I did it without spilling beer on my lap and my knock-off designer jeans. I lifted up the can to the sky, and said, "To surviving."

"To surviving." The guy who was sitting beside me on the patio, the same guy who gave me the beer and had me make the toast, was my cousin, Jude Law. No, I'm just kidding. His real name is Jude Rivers, and he's my cousin from my mother's side. Jude is similar to me in many ways: he's smart—too smart for himself just like me, if I may be honest; an underachiever just like me, too; and a fellow not-so-devout Roman Catholic. In fact, you could even say that Jude is a younger, male version of me, except he's never had to live with an alien body-snatching slug in his head for the majority of his life. It's one of the few things that I envy about him.

Actually, Jude's presence there on the patio hadn't been expected. The entire family—meaning Mom, Dad, and me—had just come back from the hospital, where we had been recovering because of the crash. From what I've heard in the news, the three of us were among 23 survivors of the crash of Regional Air Flight 6569. Hahaha, sixty-nine. Insert appropriate (or inappropriate, however you want to think about it) sex joke here. Alright, that's enough now. Anyway, there were 23 survivors, and 21 casualties, not including those onboard the Greyhound bus that we crushed before we crashed, if you get what I'm saying. I heard that those who died in that bus numbered between thirty and fifty. Man, the things that add up to create a disaster…

Where was I? Oh, right. I wasn't expecting Jude to be there on our patio. I had planned to just sit there, all alone, watching the sunset and letting Yemra reconstitute herself in some water. You see, Yemra's a special kind of Yeerk. You know how Yeerks require Kandrona rays every three days or else they'll die of starvation? Well, somehow, Yemra doesn't need the Kandrona. She found out the hard way when she was forced out of the Pool underneath my home town all those years ago, and she thought she was going through the fugue but it was actually just her imagining things. She'd been four days out of the Pool when she went into my head, and now we have this agreement in which she plops out of my head every three days just because of force of habit. I tried to make her stay in my head for more than three days once. Let's just say that she didn't like it. Long story short: Yemra's basically an immortal Yeerk. But since she's a Yeerk and all—no sight and not much else in other senses—she doesn't want to live forever like a Yeerk, if you know what I mean, and so that's one of the reasons why she's now living in my head. To be honest, I don't even know how she gets her nourishment. Personally, I think that she's sucking my blood, like some kind of vampire slug. Ooh, scary.

Wait a minute, though. That means I've got an alien mind-controlling body-snatching vampire slug in my head. Goddamn it.

_Thirteen!_ Yemra said in my head. _Thirteen years I've been sucking the blood meant for your brain! Ahahahaha!_ To be honest, though, that was a pretty good imitation of Count von Count. Anyway, enough of my brain's wanderings. My plan after getting out of the hospital was just to get Yemra out of my head and watch her swim around in a glass of water like the freeloader she is. But then there was Jude, waiting for me with a can of beer, and I just had to indulge him. He almost lost a cousin, for God's sake! Besides, after Yemra told me about her conversation with the stewardess Controller, Donna/Sinan, I grew curious about the treatment of Yeerks immediately post-war, and so I asked Jude to help me look into it. But what I didn't expect was him going personally to my house to tell me everything he found out. Weird, right?

So there we were, two cousins sipping beer on the patio, doing what cousins usually do on a slow day. Finally, after a few moments of silence, Jude took the initiative and said, "Man, Jennifer, you and your parents sure were very lucky to have survived that crash."

"I know, right?" I said as I drank my beer. "And I still can't believe that more than half of us onboard survived."

"Y'all were sitting by the middle of the plane, right?" Jude asked me. I nodded in confirmation. "Man, y'all really are all lucky, y'know? They still couldn't find the poor bastards who happened to be sitting on top of the bomb when it blew up, y'know? Well, to be honest, they found bits of blood and bone and gore and DNA. They're trying to find out who those guys who were unfortunate enough to be sitting on top of the bomb were."

"Sucks to be them," I muttered. "Both the dead guys, and the poor bastards who're trying to piece them together again."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. Anyway, Jen, I'm here for something else other than the fact that my cousin has just returned from the land of the dead."

"Of course you are," I muttered. "I expect you to be here for more than just familial reasons."

"Oh, no need to go sarcastic on me, Jennifer," Jude said. "Anyway, remember when you were still in the hospital, and you asked me to help you look up those internment camps for Yeerks that the government built immediately after the invasion?" I nodded in reply. "Well, I looked them up, just like you told me. They're these long rows of pre-fab buildings smack dab in the middle of Arizona's deserts. You know about how the government forced Japanese-Americans into similar camps in the interiors following Pearl Harbor in World War Two, right?"

"Yeah, I know," I replied. The internment of those Japanese Americans during World War Two was a colossal mistake on our part, in my opinion, but looking at it from the perspective of the Forties, and the war, it was probably understandable. "But why are you asking me about it, though?" I asked Jude. "Is it important for what you're about to tell me?"

"Actually, it _is_ important to what we're actually about to talk about," Jude replied. "When the Yeerks lost, every Yeerk and Controller who was still on Earth were rounded up and sent to these internment camps, except you obviously, because no one even knew about your Yeerk until after the fact. Of course, it was inevitable that there would be holdouts, Yeerks who fought back, but the Army eventually tasered those holdouts into the camps. There, the Yeerks were divided along their personal and ideological convictions or some shit like that.

"There were five classes, if I remember correctly," Jude continued. "We took the way that the Yeerks classified alien species, and adapted it to them. Ironic, huh? Anyway, Class One Yeerks were those Yeerks who were like Esplin 9466 Prime and the late Edriss 562; you know, the 'your body is mine now, _untermensch_, go cower in your mind, puny Earthling' kind of Yeerks. Class Two Yeerks were slightly less power-hungry and insane than Visser Three and Visser One, but still the type that would regularly abuse their hosts just for the fun of it. Class Three Yeerks were the one that fell between the 'mind-torturer' and the 'peacenik' stereotypes, in that nobody knows if they still believe in the Yeerk Empire, or if they're convinced that meekly surrendering and existing with fellow sentients is the best thing that's ever happened to them. Class Four Yeerks were those who believed that they shouldn't have to go around the galaxy forcing themselves into other sentients' heads, but they liked it better if they had control of the body instead of the host. Class Five Yeerks—oh, man, these are the perfect Yeerks, at least according to current US government doctrine. These Yeerks firmly believe that a symbiotic relationship can be achieved between them and the humans, and they are quite happy with letting the human have control most of the time, and that the important thing for them is that they can see, smell, hear, taste, and touch. Like I said, the perfect Yeerk for the government. You know, Jen, if they caught Yemra up there in your skull, she'd probably get back in there about as quick as they got her out, because she appears to be a Class Five. Or are you a Class Four, eh, Yemra?" Jude asked my Yeerk directly.

_Oh, Jen_, Yemra told me, _if only I had fists, and if Jude wasn't your cousin, and I didn't know that this is how he acts for his whole life, then maybe I would have already punched him_.

((Whoa, Rocky Balboa,)) I told my Yeerk, ((easy back there. Can't have you waving _my_ fists around.))

_Okay, I'm calming down now. But I have to get out of your head soon._

((Oh, come on, Yemra, can't you just try to stay in my head for at least four days?))

_Sorry, Jen, no can do. I mean I really can't do it, even if I forced myself to. The instinct to get out every three days is very strong, if you get what I'm talking about._

((Oh, come on. You know I hate it whenever you're out. Why can't you try just three days and one hour?))

_Like I said before, Jennifer, I really can't do it_.

((Whatever, slug.))

"Anyway, as I was saying," Jude continued, none the wiser about my internal conversation, all the Class One Yeerks we captured were quickly tasered out of their hosts and put on trial. To be honest, Jen, I thought those trials were just kangaroo courts. I mean, we already knew that these Yeerks were guilty of various things like torture, summary executions, and impersonating enemy combatants—"

"Impersonating enemy combatants?" I parroted.

"Yeah, you know, with the whole shoving their slimy bodies into your ear and taking over your brain and body thing."

"Ah, all right. Continue."

"Like I was saying, the Class One Yeerks were already guilty the moment that they stepped into the International Criminal Court in The Hague in Netherlands. We only put them on trial to show that we humans at least gave everyone, even aliens, the right to face a court of law, because we're better than these barbaric Yeerks. But what actually happened in The Hague was something like what the North Koreans did when they captured the USS _Pueblo _back in the Sixties. We all knew they were guilty, and we wanted to see people-er, Yeerks—being held accountable for all the things they did to the people they infested. Many Class Ones were sentenced to death by Kandrona starvation, using techniques that their own Vissers invented and perfected. Once again, note the irony. The others were stuck into those mysterious Andalite-built purple boxes, just like Esplin 9466 Prime.

"Meanwhile, many Class Two Yeerks and almost all the Class Threes were made to take animal or human morphs, and then forced to stay in those forms for more than two hours. In effect, we made them nothlits. Only the Class Fives and some of the Class Fours were allowed to remain as Yeerks, and only those Yeerks whose hosts consented to their presence were allowed to remain with their hosts. It's a strange and sad situation, really. It's pretty much got a segregation or apartheid feel to it. Only those who conformed to the program were allowed to stay and live. All the others were arrested, executed, or forced to become animals."

"Jesus Christ, Jude," I said once my cousin had finished. "When you say it like that, it sounds very depressing."

"I know, right?" Jude told me. "I'm thinking of trying to write some depressing books or stories. You know, become this generation's Edgar Allan Poe?"

"Yeah, good luck with that," I snorted. "We all know that you'll find a way to procrastinate that."

"Yeah, you're right, Jennifer," Jude conceded. "I probably really won't do it anyway."

"Oh, come on now, cuz," I told him. "Don't beat yourself up just because I am. You will become this generation's Edgar Allan Poe. It's just a matter of when you want to do it."

"Nah, maybe not Poe," he said. "But I will definitely try to become a bestselling author."

"That's the spirit."

"Hey, I got an idea," Jude said, sitting up straighter on his seat, the way he always did whenever the gears in his head were turning. "What if Lewinsky was actually a Controller, and she tried to infest Clinton, but the plan was foiled, so instead they just turned it into a sex scandal?"

"That's a conspiracy theory, Jude," I told him, "not a story. Don't feed the trolls and the crazies."

"Yeah, you're right," Jude conceded once again. "Seriously, though, it sounded much better in my head than when I said it out aloud."

"Everyone has those moments, cousin."

"Anyway, while we're on the subject of Controllers," Jude said, "did you know that the highest ranking Yeerk to be classified as a Class Five was someone named Visser Five, and that she and her host girl are living here in Pennsylvania too?"

"Really? I didn't know that! No, really, I didn't. Visser Five? A Class Five Yeerk? No way. You're probably just pulling my leg, man."

"No, no, I'm serious. Rumor has it that this Visser Five gal was the one behind the Yeerk Peace Movement, not Aftran as the Animorphs books made us believe. The rumors also say that she's living right here, in Pennsylvania, although exactly in which city she's living right now, nobody's sure."

"Probably not our city, anyway," I muttered. "Still, that's gotta be something, right? Girl hosting the Yeerk that founded the Yeerk Peace Movement that eventually got the government to go easy on the good Yeerks. Wonder if she's got a fan club, or groupies."

_All right, Jennifer_, Yemra told me, _you and your cousin have been talking for long enough now. Now it's time for me to come out!_

((Oh, come on, Yemra,)) I told her, ((can't you even try to stay for just one hour longer, or maybe one day?))

_No chance in hell, Jen! Now catch me!_

As I felt Yemra disengage from my brain, I turned to Jude and said, "D'you mind if I let Yemra out right now in front of you?"

"Well, that explains the water," he said. "Sure, go on ahead."

My right ear began to tingle from the sensation of Yemra making her way out of my head. I squinted from the pain, at least until Yemra released the painkiller that numbed the sensation of her pushing out of my ear. Eventually, she got her whole body out of my ear, and I caught her with my right hand just before she fell to the ground, and I placed her in the water.

"You know, Jen," Jude said, "sometimes I think you do the things you do just to freak me out."

"Oh, no," I groaned sarcastically. "You found out my secret plan."

Jude laughed. "Knew it," he said. "Hey, Jen, have you heard? The Hork-Bajir have made a lot of history in the time that you've spent in the hospital."

"Really? Why's that?"

"Well, it's just that all Hork-Bajir are now American citizens, and that they now have permanent, voting representation in both the Congress and the Senate. Man, you should have seen the lines for the immigration and naturalization centers. Bark-eating aliens with bladed bodies as far as the eye can see!"

"I'll take your word for it," I said. "How about Hork-Bajirs in the Senate and Congress, though? How does that work?"

"Ah, well, you know, the government treats the Hork-Bajir like they're a state of their own, and so that's two senators immediately. As for representatives, I think they've got about five or six thanks to their relatively low population. But it's still higher than Alaska's, would you believe?"

"Really?" I said. "Hork-Bajir finally have representation in good ol' 'Murica? Good for them!"

"Oh, and have you seen the latest viral videos? They're all about Hork-Bajir going nuts now that they've got all the privileges of us Americans. You know, McDonald's, Starbucks, the Second Amendment, and Obamacare. But there's a bunch which you have to see to believe."

"All right," I said. "But I want you to tell me about them first, so that I'll be the judge if I really have to see it to believe it."

"Okay, all right," Jude said. "There's this Islamic State video that was supposed to show them ragheads executing yet another hostage, but then out of nowhere a Hork-Bajir pops into the picture and kills every Johnny Jihad in the picture."

"All right," I said. "Now I really have to see it to believe it. Wait a minute, a Hork-Bajir? Aren't they, like, pacifistic to the core?"

"Yeah, well, rumor has it that it's not really a Hork-Bajir," Jude said as he pulled out his iPhone, "rather, it's a CIA agent in a Hork-Bajir morph that killed all those jihadis."

"Okay, I know that the military and the CIA experimented with the morphing technology immediately after the war," I said. "But I thought they abandoned it almost immediately after they found out that you could morph only with skintight stuff like t-shirts and leggings and all that."

"Yeah, well, some people say that the military have finally developed stuff that could allow someone to carry arms and ammunition even while in morph, while others say that people with the morphing power don't need to carry guns around because, well, they could morph into whatever dangerous animal they could think of and attack, or they can morph something small like an ant or roach to escape. Anyway, that's all rumors for now." Jude handed over his phone to me. "Enjoy," he told me.

I watched the video that Jude had playing on his iPhone. It started just like your ordinary terrorist video, with the executioner promising to kill more hostages until the "Western crusader infidels" withdraw their armies from the Middle East. Yeah, fat chance of that happening while you're still around, Johnny Jihad, I thought. And then, just like the Internet meme said, it escalated quickly. One of the black-clad figures in the background of the video suddenly began growing higher, and then blades ripped through his clothes, revealing himself as a Hork-Bajir. This Hork-Bajir then began cutting through the ISIS fighters with his blades.

"Here comes the best part," Jude said, as he leaned over to watch the video with me. "Look at the would-be executioner kneeling on the sand, begging for mercy and crying like a little bitch. Look, the Hork-Bajir's lifting up his arm blades, and… chop!"

It was already a gruesome sight, without Jude adding color commentary to it. When the Hork-Bajir lopped off the executioner's head, fountains of blood spurted out of the executioner's neck, like high-pressure hoses. "Oh, my God," I muttered. "Is this even real?"

"Oh, it's legit, all right," Jude replied. "Obama just announced the successful rescue of one of ISIS's hostages, and ISIS itself has denounced America for using aliens to, quote, 'carry out the infidels' crusade in the Middle East while the Westerners themselves cower in their own countries,' unquote."

"Man, they're really messed up in the head," I said. "The extremists, I mean. I like Islam, and Muslim. I'd like to have a Muslim friend. It's just these fucking extremists that kill the deal for everyone else."

"Well, everybody's got extremists, Jen," Jude told me.

"True that."

We sat in silence once again, as an awkward silence fell upon us. Finally, Jude turned to me and asked me, "Can I ask you a question? I mean, a personal question?"

"Sure, go ahead," I replied, bracing myself for the worst case scenario.

"How do you take a bath with that thing on?" he asked, pointing at my cast.

I had to laugh out loud for that. "That's it?" I asked him back. "Man, I was expecting something much, much more personal than that!"

"No, I'm serious, Jen," Jude continued. "I'm genuinely curious. How do you take a bath with that cast?"

"Well, sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do."

"Oh, don't you start with that philosophical bullshit now!" But he was grinning. He knew what I was actually talking about, since he had gone through almost the same thing himself. Well, it's actually more like he broke his arm playing football rather than in a plane crash, but he did get his arm broken too, and therefore he also knew what it was like to have a cast. Maybe he thought that I took a bath differently from him. Sometimes even I don't understand what goes through my cousin's mind. He can be so random, sometimes.

I glanced at my watch. "All right," I said. "Time for Yemra to come back." I took Yemra from the glass of water, put her up to my ear, and waited as she reinfested me. Throughout all this, Jude was watching me silently. "There has got to be something wrong or creepy about watching your cousin wilfully let a mind-controlling slug into her head," he said once Yemra was fully connected to my brain once again.

_Well, then, maybe, you shouldn't be watching your cousin getting infested_, Yemra teased. I relayed this to Jude, who grinned and said, "Love you too, Yemra."

Jude's iPhone rang. "Well, that's the signal that my parents are looking for me," he told me. Guess I'll be seeing you next time, Jen. You too, Yemra."

"Bye, Jude," I told him. "Get home safe."

"Don't worry, I will. Oh, but before I go…" Jude took the glass where Yemra had just swum around and drank it. "You do realize that that water's probably full of alien slime, and my blood and my brain juice?"

"Who cares?" Jude said, wiping his mouth. "It's water."

"Yeah, well, just before she infested me when I was nine, Yemra had spent some time in the sewers."

Jude did a spit take. "What?"

"Hey, look at it from my perspective! I've got sewage in my head! And that's not counting the Yeerk!"

_Haha, Jen_, Yemra said. _Real funny. And real mature._

((Oh, you,)) I told her. ((You'll get over it soon enough.))

"You're a weird girl, Jennifer Carson. That's why I love having you as my cousin!"

Yeah, that's life for the Carsons and the Riverses. We would do things to each other that other people would see as offensive, but for us it was how we showed our love for each other. Just like me and Yemra. I might call her many things—bitch, slug, and body-snatcher come to mind—and she might call me many things herself—like puppet, meatbag, mask, and now puny Earthling—and yet we're the closest of friends. War certainly makes for strange bedfellows, doesn't it?


	5. Nothlits on a Plane

Sunday afternoon. Usually Sunday was one of my least favorite days, second only just to Monday, and sometimes Sunday even managed to trump the beginning of the week as my least favorite day. The whole family—meaning Mom, Dad, and I—went to Mass every Sunday morning, and then after that we would all go back home and just laze around doing nothing much. When I was still going to school, Sunday was the day when I would do most of my homework, because I always managed to convince my parents that Saturday was supposed to be a free day. But now that I was a fresh new college graduate… well, let's just say that everyone ends up stewing in their own juices every Sunday.

This Sunday was just like every other Sunday. We all woke up early because we usually attended the nine o'clock Mass. I dragged through the bathing part and the dressing up part like I usually did, but even while I was doing that, I felt this desire to go to church as quickly as I could. Maybe surviving that plane crash may have something to do with it. I had tried to make contact with the pilots of Flight 6569, but so far I've had no replies from either of them, so I just passed on my thanks to the next best person: the guy upstairs, the higher authority.

Anyway, I sat through Mass as best as I could. Yemra kept quiet, and mostly to herself during the Mass, but I was sure that she was also quietly observing my daydreams. But today, I couldn't concentrate on letting my mind fly, because I had this itch underneath my cast that I just cannot reach. The cast was due to be removed tomorrow, and I had this sneaking suspicion that my body knows that the cast is about to be removed soon, and so it started up the itch so that I was in at least some kind of mild discomfort for the last 24 hours that I would have to wear the cast.

I finally managed to get through the Mass without fidgeting much, and the best—and only—way I could think of to remedy my under-cast itch was to imagine scratching it, without really scratching it, if you get what I mean. After that, we all went back home, and began doing our respective things. Dad went to the living room, turned on the TV, and watched that _Ancient Aliens_ "documentary" on the History Channel (I don't believe in _ancient_ aliens, but I certainly know for a fact that _modern_ aliens exist, ie. Yeerks and Yemra). Mom took out her laptop and began working on her thesis for her master's degree, which she was only taking now because I had finally graduated. Meanwhile, I went back to my room, turned on my computer, and began searching the Net for new news about Flight 6569, such as updates as to who brought it down, and why. Most of the results that appeared on the search engine were already ones that I had read before, and almost knew by heart their contents. The articles were mostly in the same format: bomb brings down Flight 6569. Flight crew manages to save more than half of their passengers despite the plane's conditions. Suspects in the bombing still unknown. Well, now it wasn't so much unknown as being narrowed down. They've managed to rule out al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, the drug cartels, and all the other usual suspects when planes get bombed, and that has surely narrowed down the suspects considerably. But apparently they were still not sure as to who else could have done the bombing, so they kept saying that they didn't know who _exactly_ did it.

I narrowed down my search by typing in "regional air flight 6569 news" and then adding some other parameters, such as links made within the past 24 hours. Most of the results that popped up were purple, meaning I had already read them. But then I saw a blue hyperlink, right down at the bottom of the page, and of course I knew I had to click it, because I probably hadn't seen it yet. The article itself was short, but what was within it would give me a lot to think about for the coming days.

**INVESTIGATORS FINALLY CONFIRM IDENTITIES OF MISSING PASSENGERS OF DFJ 6569**

**PENNSYLVANIA – NTSB investigators have finally managed to uncover the identities of two passengers aboard Regional Air Flight 6569 that had been supposedly disintegrated by the bomb that brought down Flight 6569, and killed nineteen more people onboard the plane and almost forty people on the ground.**

**DNA samples gathered from the wreckage of the aircraft have been confirmed by forensic investigators to be "perfect matches" for two people within the Yeerk nothlit registry. The missing passengers, previously identified as Nestor Ocampo and Amelia de Barcelona, have now been discovered to be actually Yeerk nothlits, Yeerks who were forced to assume human or animal morphs and then made to stay in said morphs for more than two hours to effectively trap in their new bodies. "Ocampo" and "de Barcelona" were actually two nothlits named Yaheen Sulpniar and Cherug Hettsimplat, respectively. Sulpniar and Hettsimplat were two Class Three Yeerks that were controversially allowed to take human forms despite the fact that repeated interrogations had shown that both of them were still loyal to the Yeerk Empire, and that both of them had been very abusive to their previous hosts.**

**Sulpniar/Ocampo and Hettsimplate/de Barcelona were residents of the Honeywell Apartments district in Reading, Pennsylvania, and had been since the conclusion of the Yeerk invasion of Earth. Travel in and out of the Honeywells, as well as other "designated nothlit habitation areas," is strictly regulated by local police forces, or sometimes the National Guard or even Army Military Police units. It is currently unknown how the two nothlits managed to get out or escape from the Honeywells without raising suspicion from the Reading Police Department, although it was immediately apparent that some cash transactions occurred, and that false documents were certainly procured and used.**

"**As of now, we still have no idea how two nothlits managed to get onboard Flight 6569 without raising attentions or suspicions," said Vera de Quilla, the NTSB lead investigator into the bombing of Flight 6569. "We do not know why they had to use false documents to board this flight, although some of our investigators think that it may be because of discrimination and the like. For all we know, they could have just wanted to experience flying on a plane, and ended up in the worst position possible. On the other hand, they could even be the bombers themselves."**

**Discrimination against Yeerk nothlits is not unheard of, and the airline industry has certainly had its share of incidents regarding airlines' and crewmemebers' refusal to let nothlits board flights just for the reason that they are nothlits. And while the issue of nothlit discrimination is currently not as divisive as slavery and African-American civil rights used to be, it still remains as a black spot on the Land of the Free. Anti-discrimination laws for nothlits have been passed in only a few states, and these states are the likes of Alaska, Hawaii, and Idaho, where there are few if any nothlits living. No national anti-nothlit discrimination bill has yet been passed through Congress as of press time, but congressmen from California and Pennsylvania are reportedly currently working on such a bill.**

**The NTSB is currently still keeping all possibilities open even as they have released this new information to the public. With the number of possible suspects rapidly dwindling by the hour, the NTSB has now turned its attention to the home front; with homegrown terrorists currently at the top of their suspects' list. It will take some time before the identities of the bombers are finally revealed, but the NTSB hopes to accelerate this once the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security begin helping out in the investigation.**

((Oh, man, Yemra, can you believe this?)) I told my Yeerk as I read the article. ((We actually had nothlit Yeerks with us onboard that flight!))

_Honestly, Jen_, Yemra replied, _while I am surprised about the presence of other Yeerks onboard our flight, I am by no means as surprised as you are. However, I am very much surprised by who exactly was on the flight with us_.

((Huh? Really? You think you know those Yeerks in the article? The ones that pretended to be real people just so they could get onboard?))

_I know of them_, Yemra clarified. _Yaheen Seven-Five-Two of the Sulp Niar Pool was Visser Eight when the invasion was still going on, and Cherug Two-Zero-One of the Hett Simplat was his aide; his right-hand man, you humans would say. Actually, it would be more accurate to call Cherug a right-hand woman, because she had a female personality and certainly preferred female hosts over the male ones._

((Okay, so they were some high-ranking Yeerks when y'all eventually lost,)) I said. ((How come the government allowed them to take human morphs if they were so bad and abusive to their hosts?))

_It's not as simple as that, Jen_, Yemra said. _Like the article said, they _are_ loyal to the Empire_._ And while they didn't really believe in all the Imperial propaganda on how it was our right to take every living creature's senses all for ourselves, they were certainly dedicated to achieving the Empire's goals, however they could. They will surely resent being forced into becoming nothlits after the defeat. Sure, they've got human forms, but let's face it, Jen; nothlits today are lower down the pecking order than even the illegal immigrants. They've even been compared to the slaves and Negroes, by the Kandrona_!

((Wow. Since when did you start using the word "Negro"?))

_I thought you were a daughter of the Confederacy_, Yemra told me.

((Sure, I may have ancestors and relatives living in the South,)) I replied back, ((but I'm pure Pennsylvania born and bred.))

_Whatever, Jennifer. Still, though, that article makes you think… What if it was indeed the nothlits that bombed the plane?_

((What? You're seriously considering that? Why would the nothlits want to even bring down a plane? What's their motive? Do they want to tell us something by bombing that plane? Because that's certainly one of the reasons why we humans will resort to terror attacks. Remember September 11? Those planes that were flown into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the one that crashed into the ground across the state in Shanksville? The guy that did it, Osama bin Laden, did it because he wanted to say that he can strike America anywhere, even right in its homeland. Are the nothlits going for something like that?))

_Ah, Jen, truth be told, I don't even know now,_ Yemra said. _The nothlits probably don't want to send _that _kind of message, but who knows? If they _were _the ones behind the bombing, then maybe they _are _trying to tell us something, and that something probably ain't good, as you humans are fond of saying_.

Yemra and I decided to leave our conspiracy theories behind for the meantime, and instead we just concentrated on getting through the day. I went onto Facebook and checked my emails, and then I played some of the games that Jude had introduced to me; games such as _Total War: Rome II_ and _Europa Universalis IV_. But by the time I finished playing, only two hours had passed, and it was just noon.

I ate lunch with Mom and Dad. We had hotdogs, scrambled eggs, gravy, and mashed potatoes. Sure, it's not the healthiest of lunches, but then again Dad wasn't really Gordon Ramsay or anything. After lunch, I went back to my room and continued playing. It was really quite literally the only way to let time pass now that I wasn't a student anymore. At least Jude introduced me to his grand strategy games after I finally graduated, or else I wouldn't have been able to do any kind of schoolwork at all.

Anyway, I was halfway through roflstomping through Muscovy as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth when I received a text. I sighed, paused my game, and then read the message.

_Jen! Soccer practice at 4! I know you're okay cause I saw you at church today. Come here now!_

I had to rack my brain before I suddenly remembered what exactly in the world my friend Julia was talking about. And then it clicked. Oh, yeah! I was supposed to go to soccer practice today! How could I have forgotten that? Maybe surviving a plane crash had something to do with it, but who knows, really?

Just a few months before, I had been approached by a local amateur girls' soccer team to manage their team. Back in my high school days, I had been a fairly good soccer player, with my preferred position being a striker. I had helped my school win the county championship during the junior and senior years, and the memory of my senior year championship was one that I would never forget for quite probably the rest of my life. We were playing against our local rivals for the championship, but our semifinals game against our other rivals had tired us out so much that our opponents managed to get three goals against us in just the first half. But just like the movies, we managed to get back into the game thanks to a real-life sweaty goal from me, assisted by my other friend Carina; you know, the other friend of mine that really saw Yemra coming out of my head when we were like ten or something. The second goal was a successfully converted penalty courtesy of yours truly, because one of the opponents' defenders tackled me hard inside the box. Carina scored the equalizer when I crossed the ball into the box, and she caught the ball with her head and steered it into the back of the goal. But it was the winning goal, my third goal in this game, that will really stay with me forever. It was deep into stoppage time, and we managed to get the corner kick. Everyone agreed that it was going to be the last attack in regulation time. The ball flew right over the clump of players that had formed near the mouth of goal, and it began to curve towards me. My back was facing the goal, which meant that my positioning was very awkward if ever I did try to attempt a shot at goal. So I did what had to be one of my most desperate gambles: the aerial scissors kick. I hit the ball in the angle between my leg and my foot, and I just smashed it into the general direction of the goal. It wasn't only after my teammates began mobbing me that I realized that my Hail Mary play had worked, and that the ball had gone beyond the reach of the unsuspecting keeper.

Anyway, I was talking about managing the local amateur girls' soccer team, not my high school soccer career. Since there wasn't much in the way of a Little League Soccer in the good old United States, there wasn't much to do with this team, except keep them sharp by constant practice. Training usually took place in Thursdays and Saturdays, and if someone wanted to play a game, they were also scheduled in the aforementioned days. The deal was that for every game and day of training, I would get three hundred dollars. In exchange, I would get near-absolute control of the team for as long as I was contracted to them.

My family wasn't exactly very poor, but we're also not that rich. We're pretty much straddling that middle-class line. But still, that's three hundred dollars straight to my pockets. It feels nice to have my own source of income.

I saved my game, put on some relatively new clothes and a pair of sandals, and rushed out of the house. I gave only a bare-bones explanation to my parents, who knew what it was about anyway. I didn't even bother to hear their replies as I went out, because I knew what they were gonna say by heart already. Stay safe, look both ways before crossing the road, don't get injured—more than I already am, anyway—and come back home before seven; and if you can't come home before seven, text us immediately so that we won't worry ourselves to death. Yeah, it's one of the drawbacks of being an only child: you're the only one your parents worry about, and so they worry about everything they can.

The park—if it could even be called that—was just a flat patch of trimmed grass surrounded by a few benches and terraces that the builders and owners had generously called a soccer field. It also had no official name—nothing snappy like Emirates Stadium, Allianz Arena, or the like—so everyone just called it "the park." Come on, let's face it; it's a very far cry from the likes of Wembley, Camp Nou, and the Maracana. Even San Marino wouldn't probably dare play a game in this park, even if they knew they would win against whomever it was who wanted to play them there. But it was still my team's home ground, and I had to like it whether I really liked it or not.

As I stepped onto the sidelines of the field, I saw that the girls—twelve of them—were already on the field, doing the same drills that my coach had taught me back in high school, and the same ones that I had now passed on to them. But my eyes were then drawn towards a flash of golden blonde hair. Oh, yeah, Jules was definitely already here, and she looked like she was the one in charge during my absence, but the term "in charge" as it applied to her management of the team was… tenuous, to say the least. Remember when I was approached by the team to become their manager? Well, I managed to convince them to bring on Jules as my assistant, but it was soon painfully obvious, to me at least, that while she was a very good winger out in the field, once she was on the sidelines, Jules was painfully lacking in leadership and management skills.

"Oh, God, Jen!" Jules said as soon as she saw me. "Thank God you're finally here!" She then ran over to me and wrapped in a bear hug that was surprising, coming from someone as small and lithe as she was.

"Oh, come on, Jules," I said with what little air still remained in my lungs, "hugging me like that makes me think that I almost didn't survive the crash." Which, in retrospect, was the unbiased truth. I had looked up some statistics, and I found out that people who were thrown out of the plane during a crash had a fifty-fifty chance of living or dying. The dice had rolled in my favor when my seat had fallen out of the plane during the crash, but I was very well aware that that could have been my last moments on this earth. "But seriously now, Jules, you're hugging me too tight," I told her.

"What? Oh, sorry." Jules disengaged, only realizing her own innate strength. "Oh, shit," she muttered. "I'm sorry, Jen. You know me," she said sheepishly. "Sometimes, I can get very emotional."

"It's all right," I said, waving off her apology. "What's going on, though? Why are there only twelve girls here? Where's the rest of them?"

"It's a long story, Jen," Jules replied. "Last Thursday—the day of the crash, if I'm correct—I took care of the girls, just like you told me to do before you went to DC. It went along okay—the girls were having fun, and I was just chilling out, not knowing that my BFF had almost died just a few kilometers from where I was. And then, just fifteen minutes into the practice, these Boy Scouts showed up and said that it was their turn to use the park now."

"No way," I muttered.

"Yes way," Jules said. "There was some shouting, some trash talking, and maybe even a spitball or two, I don't know. Eventually, the girls just up and walked away, and I didn't even do anything to stop them." Jules was beginning to tear up now. "I can't do anything right with these girls, Jen! I try and I try, but I know that they think I'm a shit assistant manager, and they all laugh at me behind my back, but when they really absolutely needed me, I couldn't do anything!"

"Oh, Julia, don't say that," I told her as I hugged her and patted her in the back. "You're a good girl, Jules, remember that. And sure, you're not the best assistant manager the girls have ever seen, but then again that's why I'm the manager and you're the assistant. But forget that! You're a good girl, a good player, a good winger, and just because you're bad at doing something doesn't mean that you're automatically bad at everything. In fact, because you're bad with at least one thing means that you're human. Nobody's perfect, right?"

"But how about you?" Jules asked me. "You're not absolutely shit at anything."

"I just know how not to show it," I replied. "Oh, come on, Jules. Don't you remember that you had to tutor me for algebra and trigonometry because it was Fs all over the place for me when it comes to math?"

"Oh, yeah," Jules said. "Now I remember."

"Also, now I'm back," I continued. "I'm here to help you help me manage the team, and if those Boy Scouts come back here looking for trouble, they're gonna find me waiting for them."

"Thanks, Jen, I guess," Jules said after a few moments' pondering. "I guess I do feel better now that you're back." Then she glanced at something or someone beyond my shoulder, and she said, "Speak of the devil," she muttered. "Here come the Boy Scouts."

A bunch of boys stepped onto the park, led by a big burly boy who looked to be twelve but was most likely just ten years old. All of the boys were wearing plain blue kits, except for their leader, who was wearing a shocking pink kit. He must be their goalkeeper, if his kit was different from all the others.

"Hey, Suzie!" the goalie boy called out. "I thought we told you that this was our park now!"

"This is a public park, Johnny," Suzie, the girl Johnny had called out, retorted as bravely as she could. "That means anyone can use it anytime that they want. And we're using it right now!"

"Oh, yeah? Well, we want to use it too, and we want to use it without you girls!"

Oh, man, this was so hilarious if it weren't for the fact that there was probably definitely some kind of bullying involved here now. It was just an extension of the age-old battle between man and woman. Hmm, that reminds me of Mom and Dad. They've had their quarrels and fights and bickering and all that, but in the end they both got back together like nothing happened. Also, their names were Adam and Eve; Adam Carson and Eve Rivers (before she got married and took on the Carson name too, of course). Yeah, my parents are literally Adam and Eve. We've got this inside joke where they were gonna name me Cain or Abel or Seth if I had been a boy, but then it turned out that I was actually a girl, so they decided to name me Jennifer Yelena Carson instead.

_Uh, Jen?_ Yemra asked. _Shouldn't you be doing something to help your girls out?_ Beside me, Jules's expression mirrored Yemra's sentiments, even though I was sure that Julia had no idea what my Yeerk was thinking about.

"All right, all right," I told both my BFF and my Yeerk. I walked over to where the boys and girls were facing off with each other, and I stepped into no man's land, the gap between their two groups. "Okay, what's going on here?" I asked in what I hoped sounded like a bored tone.

"These boys are at it again, Jen!" Suzie told me, and she even pointed the accusing finger at Johnny and his boys. "They're trying to kick us out of the park again!"

"Oh, so it's your park now?" Johnny retorted almost immediately. "Whatever happened to this place being a public park?"

"Okay, everybody shut up!" I shouted above the screaming of two dozen prepubescent boys and girls. "I want everybody's mouths shut unless I talk to you directly! Got it?"

_Ooh,_ Yemra commented. _You're gonna go for the Visser approach now, aren't you?_

((That includes you, Yemra,)) I told her.

_Okay. I am going to shut up now._

I turned to the big boy named Johnny. "You!" I said, pointing at him. "What's your name?"

"I'm Johnny Medici," he said, "but everyone calls me Gandalf because 'You shall not pass!' Why do you wanna know, anyway? Who are you?"

"Who I am is not important to you," I told him. "But what you should know is that these are my girls. And if you pick on my girls, then you're also picking on me. So, Gandalf, huh? I assume you've made lots of saves, judging by your looks and your name."

"You bet I have!" Johnny the Gandalf said confidently, even puffing out his chest a little bit as he said it.

"How's this, though?" I said. "One penalty kick. I assume you know what that is. You save my shot, my girls and I will leave you here with your precious field without a fight. However, if I make the penalty, you'll have to leave my girls, and this place, alone. Deal?" I even stuck out my hand, putting Johnny in a bit of a bad position. If he refused, then his pals wouldn't ever let him live it down. However, if he accepted, then there was the chance that I would beat him in the penalty. I had counted on his confidence, arrogance and pride getting the better of his decision-making, and I also let him see my cast. ((Wait for it,)) I told Yemra.

The Medici boy looked at me, then his teammates, then my cast, then back at his teammates. ((Wait for it,)) I repeated.

_Oh, no, Jen_, Yemra said. _You're not planning on doing _that _to that poor kid, right?_

((Oh, yeah, Yemra, I'm gonna do it!))

_Jen, it's one thing to use the trick shot during the championship_, Yemra told me. _It's another thing to use it on such a young and unknowing kid such as him!_

((Well, it's for a good cause, Yemra. I make this, then he'll stop picking on my girls.))

_But what if you miss? Or what if by some miracle, he saves your shot?_

((Then we walk out of here without a fight, just like I said.))

Johnny Medici took my hand and shook it. "It's a deal!" he said.

I took one of the balls that the girls were playing with and brought it over to the penalty spot. Everyone else had their eyes on the both of us, and even though the park was virtually empty, I had the feeling that I was about to make a vital, game-winning shot.

Yeah, sometimes, I fall into these weird moments where I imagine I'm doing big and important stuff when I'm actually just doing small and mundane stuff. Sometimes I'm weird like that.

The Medici kid was already on the goal line, jumping around in an attempt to distract me. But every goalkeeper trying to save a penalty did such antics, and so I just watched him calmly while he made an absolute ass of himself jumping around and yelling randomly and stuff.

_What are you gonna do, Jen? _Yemra asked me.

((Uh… bottom left corner!)) I made my run and swung my right foot hard, trying to angle the ball towards the bottom left corner just like I said. Medici totally went the other way, jumping towards the right. As the ball rolled its way to the back of the net, the cheers from Jules and my girls sounded like the cheers of an entire stadium, and I thought back to the moment when I realized that I had scored the winning goal for my high school to cinch us our second championship in a row.

"Can't even save a penalty from a girl in a cast and daisy dukes," I said as my girls mobbed me in celebration. I turned to Jules and said, "What did I tell you? I dealt with those boys good, didn't I?"

"Yeah, well, thanks, Jen," Jules replied. "Oh, and there's someone looking for you." She pointed up at the benches that we generously called stands, and I saw a lone woman sitting at the topmost bench. She was wearing these old school shades with the big lenses, most probably because the sun was shining high and bright over the park. But even from such a distance, and with her shades, I still managed to recognize her.

((Isn't that the stewardess onboard the flight?)) I asked Yemra.

_Yes, that is Sinan_, my Yeerk replied.

((You mean Donna.))

_As you like it_.

"Hi," Donna/Sinan said as I walked up to her. "We've met, but I don't think we've been introduced to each other. I'm Donna Spencer." She held out her hand for me to shake.

"Yeah, I guessed as much," I said. "Jen Carson." Meanwhile, I asked Yemra, ((Who's in control?))

_The human_, Yemra replied.

((How do you even know that?))

"Yes, I remember you telling me your name when we first met," Donna said. "And you also said something about hating the nickname Jenny."

"Well, I'm not sure if I said it," I replied, "but I know a certain someone who could have told you that." I looked up at my forehead, and then Yemra showed me a mental image of a big shit-eating grin.

"Hey, Jen," Jules called out from the bottom bench, "are you gonna come down from there or am I supposed to train the girls by myself again?"

"I think the answer's obvious, isn't it?" I replied with a grin. "Now go and run along with the girls, and let them see you fall down on the pitch after just one lap around."

"Whatever, bitch," Jules retorted, but she also had a smirk on her face. "You've just survived a plane crash and now you've found yourself a new BFF? It hurts so much, Jennifer! It hurts!" The theatrics was a nice touch on her part, but Jules and I both knew that we're as inseparable as a peanut butter and jelly combo. Or a Yeerk and a brain.

"What's the deal between you two?" Donna asked me once Jules was back to training the girls.

"Like she said, we're BFFs," I replied. "But sometimes Jules can be such a drama queen. In fact, she won our high school drama club's best actress award because she was a very convincing Sleeping Beauty, but then she told me that she was actually really sleeping during the entirety of the play. Anyway, Donna, what brings you here to the colonies?"

"Oh, don't talk to me like I'm an imperialist Brit," Donna replied. "Although apparently my family's very distantly related to Lady Diana."

"I wouldn't be surprised. Her surname was Spencer before she went and married Prince Charles, right?"

Donna nodded her agreement. "Anyway," she said, "have you heard the latest news about the missing passengers?"

"If you're talking about the fact that those missing passengers were actually nothlits, then yes, I have heard the latest news."

"Well, something new has come up once again," Donna told me.

"What? What is it?"

"It turns out that those two nothlits were actually the ones behind the bombing of Flight 6569," Donna said.

"What?" I blurted out. Yemra expressed the exact same sentiment, even though both of us had been thinking along similar lines just a few hours earlier. "How did they find out that it was the nothlits who were responsible?"

"Your NTSB investigators went into the apartments where the nothlits had been staying after the war," Donna said. "They found a video where the two former Yeerks openly admitted to planning the bombing of Flight 6569. Just a few minutes after, the news agencies received the same video file from anonymous senders." Donna shook her head. "You know what, Jen?" she told me. "You're better off just watching it for yourself. You'll probably understand it better that way than if I tried to tell it to you. Hang on, let me get my mobile." She took out her cellphone from a small black purse hanging from her left shoulder. She found the video that she was looking for, and then she handed over her phone to me. "I don't know how long it's going to stay on Youtube before it gets taken down," she said, "so I downloaded it as soon as I could."

"Why would you even do that?" I asked her as I took her phone, genuinely curious.

"Call it a favor from one Controller to another," Donna replied. "Just watch it, and then you'll probably understand it better than I ever did."

I pressed the play button. And it was a decision that I regretted almost immediately.


	6. Well, That Escalated Quickly

Before I tell you what I saw in the video that Donna/Sinan showed me, let me give you just a quick recap of what happened before all that. While holding a practice with my team of amateur Girl Scout soccer players, Donna Spencer, the flight stewardess onboard Regional Air Flight 6569, and also incidentally a Controller, came to visit me. She told me that the two nothlits who had been onboard Flight 6569, far from being two beings just wanting to experience the miracle of human flight, had actually been the ones that tried to bring down the flight in the first place, using bombs that they had apparently strapped onto their bodies. The video that she was about to show me was supposedly the video that the two nothlits had made just before they had embarked on their one-way trip to their deaths.

I pressed the play button on Donna's phone. And almost immediately after, I regretted ever doing it in the first place.

* * *

The video began with a man and a woman sitting in front of either a camcorder or a webcam. "I am Yaheen Seven-Five-Two of the Sulp Niar Pool," the man said. "I am Cherug Two-Zero-One, of the Hett Simplat Pool," the woman continued.

"Thirteen years ago," Yaheen began, "I held the rank of Visser Eight. I was one of the leading officers of the Yeerk invasion of Earth. And thirteen years ago, following the defeat of the invasion at the hands of the humans, the Andalites, and the morph-capable humans known as the Animorphs, I was forced to become a nothlit. I was made to give up my old Yeerk body, and take on a new, human one.

"As a Visser, I was not like Esplin Nine-Four-Six-Six Prime, known more popularly as either Visser Three or Visser One, in that I tortured my hosts, or summarily executed any of my subordinates for failing the missions that I had given them. This was supposedly the main reason why I had been given the dignity of acquiring a human morph, instead of just being forced to take an animal morph.

"I have no problems or regrets with trading my Yeerk body for a human one, and so does Cherug here," Yaheen continued, indicating at the woman beside him. "Freeing ourselves from the necessity of Kandrona rays was a most… liberating experience. But I am not here to talk about life as a nothlit. No, I am here to call attention to the great betrayal that the human species, as a whole, has committed on the Yeerks.

"The government of the human politico-national entity known as the 'United States of America' has promised equal treatment for all men through their so-called 'Constitution,' and, following the ratification of the Bush-Aximili-Tarash Treaty, this treatment was supposedly extended to all other sentient and sapient beings from other planets, stars, and even dimensions, that take up residency within the sovereign territory of the United States. But this is actually not the whole truth. Yes, the Hork-Bajir have been given their own lands within the United States, and all of their species are about to be considered fellow Americans, and they are about to have their own representation in the American Congress. Yes, they have allowed the Taxxons to become snakes and anacondas, and to live the rest of their lives in the jungles of the continent of South America, finally free from the eternal hunger that not even Yeerks could control when they once infested the Taxxons. They have even allowed those Yeerks who have declared themselves members of the so-called 'peace movement' to retain their bodies, and in some cases, they have even kept the same host that they have had during the invasion!

"But what of the nothlits, those Yeerks who took on human forms out of choice or force? Nothlits like me or Cherug? Despite the promises of the Bush-Aximili-Tarash Treaty, we nothlits have not been given the same rights that the United States Constitutions says, and the Americans believe, is the very essence of their freedom. We nothlits do not have the right to vote. We do not have the right to bear arms—a particularly contentious point of disagreement among the humans themselves, I might add. We do not have the freedom to believe that which it is we want to believe, and in fact we nothlits are being constantly reminded by the atrocities and crimes that we have committed on the humans during our invasion of their planet, atrocities and crimes we have committed upon the orders of the Vissers and Sub-Vissers, the commanders and leaders of the invasion. And, most importantly, we nothlits do not have the freedom of speech, which appears to be one of the most important and treasured rights of the American people. If one nothlit tries to speak about something concerning the war, then a thousand humans will converge on him and accuse him of being an imperialist, a historical revisionist, or whatever juicy insult is the latest rage with them. Tell me, my fellow Americans, where is the equality that you so love in such an arrangement?" He practically spat out the words _my fellow Americans_ like it was the worst insult in the history of insults.

"Today, I speak to you not as just a nothlit, but as the spokesperson of the Movement for the Provision and Protection of the Civil and Political Rights of Nothlits," Yaheen said. "Our objectives are simple. We only want to see the United States government give full civil and political rights to every Yeerk nothlit residing within its sovereign territory, and that the granting of these rights upon us are maintained, and upheld.

"It has become a firm belief of mine that the government of the United States would actually let us nothlits rot out in the streets of their cities but, in a pitiful display of so-called 'commitment' to the agreements made in the Bush-Aximili-Tarash Treaty, they have constructed settlements within their cities that are supposed to be habitation and housing for nothlits. In reality, these habitats are just combinations of ghettos and prisons. Travel in and out of these 'housing districts' is heavily regulated by the American police and military, and crime within these settlements are much higher than even the worst cities in the United States. No human policemen even bother to patrol the streets of the nothlit settlements, and nothlits are being forced to fend for themselves against the inevitable human criminal encroachment into our settlements.

"This situation of ours is very serious, if not outright deadly. But there is a stupidly simple solution to all this: give us nothlits the rights we so clearly deserve, both according to your Constitution and the articles of the Bush-Aximili-Tarash Treaty. Give us our basic sentient rights, get us out of the death traps where you have thrown us and into some real housing, and all of these problems will be solved immediately.

"All we ask for is simple: give us nothlits the rights we deserve. A civil war is brewing, _my fellow Americans_, and the only way to prevent it is to give us what we ask. If you do not acquiesce to our entirely reasonable demands, though, I, Yaheen Seven-Five-Two of the Sulp Niar Pool, speaking on behalf of the Nothlit Rights Movement, will be personally leading the charge against the unfair treatment of nothlits at the hands of humans."

The video ended with a simple black-and-white logo of a human head and a Yeerk side by side, encircled by the words MOVEMENT FOR THE PROVISION AND PROTECTION OF THE CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS OF NOTHLITS. Below the logo was a quotation. It said, "For universal equality is the only true equality."

* * *

"Whoa," I muttered once the video was over. "Is this legit?" I asked Donna.

"Yes, Sinan confirms that that video is very much legitimate," Donna replied. "She also says that apparently, Yaheen has combined a _beshtophsan_ with a _kavakanum_."

"A what and a what?" I blurted out.

_Those words have no direct translation to your language, Jen_, Yemra told me, _but the closest I could come up for you are "letter of demands" for _beshtophsan, _and 'declaration of war' for _kavakanum.

((What!? A letter of demands and a declaration of war? Jesus, are these nothlits that desperate to get out of their ghettos?))

The look that Donna gave me showed that Sinan had also told her what _beshtophsan_ and _kavakanum_ meant. "How are the people reacting to this?" I asked her.

"What do you expect?" Donna asked rhetorically in reply. "Of course they took it for what it really was: a declaration of war. You should have seen some of the comments on Youtube. I even have a picture of one of it." Donna took her phone and called up the image that she was referring to. My Yeerk and I read the comment that Donna/Sinan had managed to capture with her phone.

* * *

REMOVE NOTHLIT REMOVE NOTHLIT remove nothlit you are worst yeerk. you are the yeerk idiot you are the yeerk smell. return to your planet. to our nothlit cousins you may come our country. you may live in the zoo… ahahahaha, Yeerk Empire we will never forgive you. body snatching rascal FUCK but fuck asshole yeerk stink empire galard galard… pool ship genocide best day of my life. take a bath of dead yeerk… ahahahahah YEERK EMPIRE WE WILL GET YOU! do not forget invasion. Yeerk empire we kill the emperor, yeerk empire return to your precious kandrona… hahahahaha idiot yeerk and nothlit smell so bad… wow i can smell it. REMOVE NOTHLIT FROM THE PREMISES. you will get caught. humanity+andalite+hork bajir+more humans = kill yeerk empire. you kill invasion/animorphs alive in california, animorphs making morph of california. fast morphs animorphs california. we are rich and have gold now hahahaha ha because of animorphs. you are poor stink yeerk… you live in a ghetto hahahaha, you live in unheated apartment.

animorphs alive number #1 in california… fuck the yeerk empire… FUCK asshole yeerks no good i spit in the mouth eye of ur Council of thirteen and vissers. animorphs alive and real strong morphers kill all the yeerk farm animal with morph magic now we the humans rule. ape of the zoo visser three fuck the great satan and lay egg this egg hatch and yeerk empire was born. stupid baby from the egg give back our bodies we will crush you like the slug you really are. Humanity greatest species.

* * *

_Wow_, Yemra told me once we were finished reading. _You humans certainly have a way of getting your point across bluntly_.

((I know, right?)) I told her. ((And to think that that copypasta used to be just about some Serbians looking to kill some Bosnians. Now we've managed to turn it into humanity's war cry. Look at the screencap! That comment's got like ten thousand likes and no dislikes at all.))

_Is that bad?_

((At this point, I can't say for sure, but for the sake of argument, let's just say that it is really, really bad. It's like we're telling these Nothlit Rights Movement guys to bring it on.))

_Oh, crap_.

I told Donna/Sinan about the conversation that Yemra and I had over the "remove nothlit" comment. The shock on Donna's face showed how much both human and Yeerk weren't expecting such a reaction from us humans.

"You Americans will really do that?" Donna asked me once I was finished speaking.

I nodded in reply. "And it's probably not just us Americans, too," I said. "Everyone else with an Internet connection or a TV that can pick up a news channel's probably gonna join in too. You British will certainly join in. The French, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Japanese, everyone. Have you heard of Ferguson?"

"Yes, of course," she replied. "Who hasn't?"

"Then you know what's happening around the country because of that. Multiply it by a hundred, and that's probably just the most optimistic scenario."

"What?" Donna asked as blood drained from her face in shock. All this was obviously shaking her up. Or maybe it was shaking up Sinan. Or maybe both of them? Who knows? "What's your worst case scenario?" she asked me with trembling lips.

"Take the immediate aftermath of the revelation of the Yeerk invasion to the public. Multiply it by a hundred. No one involved with the Yeerks is safe: not the nothlits, even those that aren't part of the Nothlit Rights Movement; not voluntary Controllers; nobody. The Yeerk-hunting mobs will return in full force. Let me ask you one thing, Donna: do you have any friends?"

"What do you think?" Donna shook her head. "What little friends I had before left me when I decided to become a Controller."

"Wow, that's a bit harsh, isn't it? Anyway, that's both a fortunate and an unfortunate situation," I told her. "The best thing you can do for now is distance yourself from your so-called 'friends,' because they could end up throwing you to the dogs if this anti-nothlit hysteria reaches the boiling point."

"Now that's harsh, Jen," Donna told me. "What makes you think my friends will do that to me?"

"What makes you think they won't?" I retorted. "Look, my friends also know that I'm a Controller, but even I'm not sure where their loyalties are gonna lie when people begin attacking nothlits and Controllers. Look, Donna, my point is that we should living by the Scouts' motto starting right now: always prepared. Whether it's for the best or the worst, just be prepared."

"Or maybe this is all just in your overactive and hyped-up imagination," Donna told me.

_You do have a quote-unquote "overactive and hyped-up" imagination_, Yemra added.

"Look, Donna, Sinan, Yemra, all of you," I said. "What Yaheen and his Nothlit Rights Movement made in that video of theirs isn't something that we humans are going to treat lightly. Y'all wanna know why? It's because we think that we hold the moral high ground. The Yeerks invaded us, the humans. They forced their slimy bodies into our heads and took full control of our bodies and thoughts, and they used those they have already taken to take even more of us. But then we defeated them, and we gave some of them the choice of becoming like us by taking on human morphs, and then we gave them only what we thought they needed. They took the very essence of our freedom and free will, so now why should we feel obligated to give us the same rights that we have, now that they're all playing by our rules?

"I'm not trying to say that these nothlits are evil. In fact, I think none of them are inherently evil. And now I kinda understand where they're coming from, now that I know a little about how they've been living these past thirteen years. But they shouldn't have tried to declare war on us on our home turf. Osama bin Laden declared war on America when he sent those planes into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. Ten years later, we finally found him and killed him. That was, what, three years ago now? My point is that humans in general and Americans in particular really don't like it when people go around threatening to attack them. And now that the nothlits have brought down a plane… that's basically when we're realizing that shit just got real."

"But what about the Andalites?" Donna pursued. "And the Hork-Bajir? Won't they try to stop any of this from happening?"

"The Andalites? Helping us 'lowly' humans?" I had to chuckle at that. "Dream on, Donna. They don't care about what happens to us, or how we're gonna deal with the nothlits. Besides, for an Andalite, a cinnamon bun is much more desirable than inter-species relations. As for the Hork-Bajir… well, they have spent an awful lot of time under the Yeerks' thumb. They're not exactly very keen on helping out either nothlits or Controllers."

"Well, at least the humans know the difference between a nothlit and a Controller, right?"

I sighed. "Let me tell you a little something something, Donna. Truth is the first casualty of war. And, if this does indeed escalate into a war between humans and nothlits, the difference between nothlits and Controllers is probably one of the first facts that's going to be 'conveniently forgotten.' A Yeerk is an alien, whichever way you look at it, and an alien is not a human, nor will it ever be, even if it looks like a human and acts like a human. Xenophobia will happen. But only time will tell if this xenophobia will just be isolated or if it will spread among everyone."

"What do you suppose we should do?" Donna finally asked after a few minutes of silent contemplation. Or maybe she had been talking to Sinan during that time.

"Like I said earlier, stay away from your non-Controller friends for the meantime," I repeated. "Stick with any Controllers in the area that you know. If you don't know any Controllers here, then go to the feeding center and stay there. I think they've got some free lodging for transient Controllers or something like that. Whatever's gonna happen in the next few days, we Controllers are gonna have to stick together."

* * *

A/N: Come on, then! Don't be shy! Leave a review or a comment! Tell me if you like it or not! I love reading your thoughts about my work! I promise you that you'll be glad that you left one!


	7. More Exposition Before the Real Action

A/N: Apologies for the very long delay of this chapter! It's not that I lost interest, I just had a lot of things on my plate, and I wasn't able to get this typed up and ready for the site. But enough about that. This chapter may be boring, mostly because it's just a little bit of exposition before the real action finally kicks off, but rest assured that the chapters after this will be much more exciting. And as always, do leave a review whether you liked it or not!

* * *

First of all, the good news. No Yeerks, Controllers, or nothlits were harmed in my city, at least. The bad news? The same can't be said for the rest of the country, or at least the 48 states plus Hawaii. No Yeerk or nothlit was mad enough to go up to Alaska, or at least I think so. In the last few days since the Nothlit Rights Movement video was leaked to the public, it had gone viral, sparking dozens of pro-human rallies, demonstrations, and in some cases even riots in almost every major city in the country. Most of the time, it was just a bunch of people waving around signs and cards saying that the nothlit Yeerks were even lucky that they were allowed to live with us humans. Some were even comparing the nothlits with illegal immigrants, and were calling for their immediate deportation, although wherever they want the nothlits to be deported, I had no idea.

Meanwhile, in California, riots almost like the ones it had in 1992 broke out, due to the fact that there were a lot of Yeerks and nothlits in the area, which was understandable because their biggest invasion pool was located in that state. People were practically rushing into the nothlit housing districts and destroying everything they could lay their hands on, just like 1992. Three nothlits were already reported to be seriously injured during the riot, and there were unconfirmed reports that a man that had been mistaken for a nothlit had been lynched, with his actual species only coming out after the fact.

**#removenothlit **was a nationwide trending topic on Twitter. People on Facebook also began posting tips—mostly made-up—to tell apart a nothlit from a real human, and how to kill them either quickly or very painfully. But there were a few brave souls that were trying to bring common sense to the mob that was social media, telling everyone that would listen to them to not give in to their base desires of revenge and turn a deaf ear to the fearmongers. All in all, just your average social media stuff.

I was just thankful that the city where I lived wasn't falling victim to the anti-nothlit hysteria. Being in such a peaceful environment (relatively speaking; there were still some people picketing in front of City Hall because of the nothlits) gave me time to think about the current situation. First of all, I read the Bush-Aximili-Tarash Treaty. Not the treaty itself, of course; just some bare-bones summaries of it on the Internet, and of course the obligatory Wikipedia article. From what I understood of the treaty, there were indeed clauses in it; nay, entire articles; which bound the US government "to regard, with equal status to its own citizens, all Yeerks which henceforth agree to become human nothlits and take up residency within the sovereign territory of the United States." All the basic necessities were supposed to be available for the nothlits: food, water, shelter, work and a steady income, social security, and even health insurance. However, instead of doing that, the government just decided to build some "special housing districts" in most major cities for the nothlits, dumped them all there, and pretended like they didn't even exist. Man, if I was a nothlit, then I would be pissed, too.

But I also had to take into account the human perspective. In his video, Yaheen said that all they wanted was what was promised to the nothlits in the Bush-Aximili-Tarash Treaty. That was understandable. But to threaten to blow up a plane when their demands weren't met? That was already terrorism! And instead of dividing us by our opinions, the Nothlit Rights Movement—or at least its more radical members—may have actually united us against them.

The Yeerk Peace Movement (yes, it actually exists, and I think they call themselves the Human-Yeerk Alliance now) had declined to comment on the matter. However, a spokesperson of theirs did come on to _60 Minutes_ to speak about the NRM, and how the movement had apparently grown a radical or extremist offshoot, and with Anderson Cooper to boot! Unfortunately, I couldn't remember much of what she said; probably something about violence not being the solution to everything. Sorry to burst your bubble, though, sis, but pacifists have been singing that same tune for since pacifism became a thing, and still we've got thousands of wars, murders, and general violence in the world.

After talking with me in The Park, Donna Spencer eventually decided to stay in one of those free rooms in the Human-Yeerk Alliance Community Center that they give to Controllers who were just passing by. Kind of like a transient barracks for the military. And while we weren't actually friends already, we did survive the crash of Flight 6569, and we were both voluntary Controllers, and therefore we had a few things in common. It seemed like I had scared her with my "worst-case scenario" for the aftermath of the NRM video leak, so she was following my suggestion to cut off all contact with her other friends; at least the ones that didn't take her decision to become a Controller well. I tried to pay her a visit once a day, since I felt responsible for her cutting herself off from her family, friends, and acquaintances.

I was waiting for Donna down by the Yeerk Pool in the community center. Yemra had to come out of my head for her three-day "regeneration," which was left over from when she thought she still required Kandrona rays every three days to survive. Of course, now she knows that she can survive without the Kandrona, but she still comes out of my head every three days. She says that it's to give her body a chance to contract after being stretched like thin putty all over my brain for three days. I think that either she's just claustrophobic, or she's afraid that if she stays in my head for more than three days, she'll get fused to my brain, meaning that we're stuck with each other forever and ever.

_Oh, I'm sure you wish that I _do _end up fused to your brain if I stay in your head for more than three days_, Yemra said to me as she read my thoughts.

((Oh, come on, Yems,)) I told her, calling her by the pet name that I had given to her. ((It will be beneficial for the both of us! You don't have to come out of my head and risk getting crushed, and I'll always have you along with me everywhere I go!))

_Don't I already go everywhere you go?_ Yemra asked me in reply. _And don't call me Yems! Honestly, it sounds embarrassing._

((Oh, don't be like that,)) I told her. ((It's not like anyone else can hear me calling you Yems. Or maybe you want me to call you Yemsy from now on?))

_Oh, by the Kandrona, Jen! That's much worse than Yems! That's just like Yelena for you!_

((The only difference between Yemsy and Yelena is that other people know that Yelena is my middle name. No one knows that Yems and Yemsy are my nicknames for you!)) I said with a mental grin.

_Okay, that's enough, Jen,_ Yemra said. _Now I really want to get out of your head ASAP!_

((All right,)) I conceded. ((But come back ASAP too!))

Yemra slithered out of my ear. _Don't miss me too much while I'm gone!_ She said just before she fully popped out of my head. I caught her almost as soon as her whole body was out, and I put her in a water bottle that I always brought along in case of situations like this.

I put the bottle on the table in front of me and rubbed the ear where Yemra had made her exit. Man, she had a way of making my ears itch all the way to hell whenever she came out of them.

I waited for Yemra's latest snarky comment, and then I remembered that she was out of my head. Right at that moment, I realized how much I had gotten used to Yemra's presence in my head. It sent a wave of loneliness through me. I'm sure that if Yemra had been my Yeerk for just the past two, three, or five years, then I wouldn't be feeling the kind of loneliness I'm feeling right now. But thirteen years? Man, if you've been stuck with an alien in your head for thirteen years, then that alien might as well be a part of your body and your personality. Yemra certainly feels like she's a natural part of my body, and I know that she's as much a part of my personality as my own personal faiths and beliefs. Every time she's out of my head, I feel like I'm missing a part of myself, and knowing that makes me just that little bit crankier. It's a bit like an addiction, really. Every time Yemra infests me, I want her to stay in me forever; and whenever she's out of my head, my mind can be all over the place.

At least she's not feeding in the Pool itself. I would have to walk over to the infestation pier just to get her back in my head, and I certainly wouldn't be able to do that in case of an emergency. I didn't want to go down the river to fish her out if ever that history of ours repeated itself, but I knew deep in my heart and soul that I would do it just to keep the two of us together. Although that sounds like the kind of thing a creepy stalker would say or write down, now that I think about it.

Man, Yemra would have some kind of joke about that if she was in my head when I thought about it.

I saw Donna enter the Pool, probably to let Sinan feed. I waved at her, and she waved back at me before walking over to the feeding pier and dropping off Sinan in the Pool. Once her Yeerk was in the Pool, Donna walked over to me and took a seat in front of me. "Hey there, Jen," she said. "Thanks for coming here once again."

"Oh, don't mention it," I replied. "It's the least I can do for you after scaring you out of your wits all those days ago."

Donna laughed a little at that. "Yes, you did scare me and Sinan a lot back then," she said. "Speaking of, your prediction doesn't seem to have come true. None of my friends have handed me over to these Yeerk-hunting mobs that you speak of. In fact, I don't think there are even any Yeerk-hunting mobs today, at least here in the city. I can't say the same for the other places, of course, like California for example."

"And you have no idea how I'm glad that my predictions actually didn't come true," I told her. "My head is quite twisted in some ways. I always assume the worst out of everyone in every situation, and as you can see, the results aren't that pretty. It's actually good to see that people are actually better than I sometimes assume them to be."

"Maybe," Donna said, nodding. "Maybe." She then noticed the water bottle where I had placed Yemra. "Is that-?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yep, that's Yemra," I replied.

"What's she doing out there?" Donna asked. "Isn't she supposed to be in the Pool, or something?"

"I know," I replied. "Apparently, she can survive without Kandrona rays at all. It's a long, weird story, but that's the truth. Yemra's a Yeerk that can survive three days and more without the Kandrona. Imagine if people found out about that! Who knows what's gonna happen to me just because of that?"

"Now I understand why you became a Controller," Donna said. "You need one to keep your mad brain in check. And it can't be just any Yeerk, too. It has to be a Yeerk that's at least half as barmy as you are. In fact, I don't think old Sinan over there could handle you and your hyper-active imagination!"

"I don't know if I should take that as an insult or as a compliment," I said honestly.

"Trust me, Jen, that's a compliment," Donna replied. "Rarely do you ever see a Yeerk and a host who have been together since the invasion that are as compatible as you and Yemra are."

"Yeah, honestly, I'm surprised that Yemra and I have gotten as close as we have. I mean, she just wanted to see and feel once again, and I wasn't even aware of the invasion until when she infested me. And look at me now! I'm missing her like I haven't seen her for a long time. And I feel like an empty jar whenever she's out of my head."

"Ah," Donna said, nodding in understanding. "I think I've heard about this before. There were some studies by some psychologists that showed that people who have been infested by Yeerks for at least ten years were generally sadder whenever their Yeerks were out feeding. Some of the people in the study were even reported to have exhibited behaviors almost like that of withdrawal symptoms, and further research revealed that these people were mostly those with introverted personalities."

"Oh, that should explain it," I said. "When I took that MBTI test, it had me as an INTP, and my introversion is like eighty percent!"

"You're an introvert?" Donna asked me. "Sure doesn't look like you are one."

"I'm just a more confident speaker now than I used to be," I replied. "Yemra's always been there to give me that extra confidence boost."

Donna nodded her head once again, and then the two of us stared at the undulating colors of the Yeerk Pool. "You know," I said, finally breaking the sudden awkward silence, "it's actually good that these Pools are now all for voluntary Controllers now."

"Yeah," Donna agreed. "I've heard the stories and read the books; how the Yeerks caged up the involuntary hosts. That was downright inhumane, that was. But then again, what can you expect from aliens?"

"I'm just glad that not everyone's going back to the stage where attacking aliens, nothlits, and voluntary Controllers was fair game for the xenophobes."

"But how about that Nothlit Rights Movement, though?" Donna asked. "They really think that they've been given the short end of the stick. The good thing is that they haven't done anything else after they tried to blow us up."

"And thank goodness for that," I muttered. "I wonder what they're planning on doing right now, though?"

"Hopefully they'll just continue demanding their rights without threatening to blow stuff up," Donna replied. "But if they're planning something even bigger, then I wouldn't want to be there when they do that."

"I'm with you on that, sister," I said. I then stood up and stretched my arms and legs. "Yemra should be done by now," I muttered.

"Already?" Donna asked, looking at the water bottle where Yemra was swimming around.

"Don't worry about it," I told her. "Yemra's always been a fast feeder, so to speak. We'll be fine." But, as I reached into the bottle to get Yemra, I felt my insides shaking. All those talk about withdrawal symptoms and the NRM's possible next move had got me quaking all over inside. It set off this feeling in me that's telling me to get Yemra back in my head RIGHT NOW, where I know she's safe.

I took a deep breath and touched Yemra to my right ear. I felt her feelers moving around the hole, and then she practically shot out of my hand and into my ear canal. I felt a kind of weird pain as the Yeerk went down my ear canal, but Yemra sent out a painkiller that numbed the feeling as much as it could. As Yemra made her connections to my brain, I felt as if the parts of my body that she was making contact with were becoming more, well, alive, I guess. It's like life itself is flowing into my limbs and feet and basically my whole body every time Yemra infests me. I know it's weird, but I like it. Once I felt Yemra's familiar presence touching my consciousness, I felt more secure and satisfied.

Once Yemra was firmly connected to every facet of my brain, she said, _My God, Jen, you were absolutely shaking when I infested you! What gives?_

((Just take a look at my memories, Yems,)) I replied. ((You'll understand it better that way than if I just straight up told you.))

She accessed my most recent memories. _Wow_, she said once she was done perusing them. _You're all scared just because the nothlits have gone quiet?_

((I'm just worried, not scared,)) I replied. ((And I'm not worried because of those guys. I'm worried that if something happens, we might end up separated from each other.))

_Oh, man, listen to yourself speak, Jen!_ Yemra said. _You sound like a lovesick teenager! Also, don't worry about me, girl. Worry about yourself first!_

((You're part of me, Yemra. That means when I'm worried about myself, I also worry about you. Besides, it's definitely much easier for the both of us if you just keep there in my skull forever. No more of that "getting out of my head every three days" business!))

Yemra laughed. _You really are crazy, Jennifer Yelena Carson_, she said. _Sometimes even I am astonished at how much of your craziness I manage to put up with!_

"Well, Donna, it looks like it's official now," I said. "Both you and Yemra think that I'm crazy!"

"Just don't go around preaching it to everyone else," Donna told me. "Some people probably won't take it the right way."


	8. When Life Imitates Art and All That Jazz

It was a slow day in Mr. Tenkiss's diner. It was only five o'clock in the afternoon, and yet the last customer had already left the place just about ten minutes ago. Granted, it was raining heavily outside, but then again, Mr. Tenkiss's place is usually still packed to the gills at this time, even when it's raining or snowing.

Yeah, aside from being the manager of those Girl Scout soccer players, I also had a part-time job in Mr. Tenkiss's diner. Sometimes I'm a cashier; sometimes I'm the waitress taking orders, and sometimes I'm even the cook. But that rarely happens. Anyway, as I was saying, today I was at the cash register, but since no one has come in for like ten to fifteen minutes already, I was actually listening to the songs in my iPhone, trying to find some inspiration for my first book. Yeah, I'm an aspiring writer too, alongside everything I'm already doing.

The song that I was listening right now was some kind of German heavy metal song that Jude had introduced to me a few years ago. And while metal isn't really my style, I quite like some of their songs. Especially this one, which was about how a guy mourns for the loss of his loved one, or at least that's one way of interpreting it. It's one of the reasons—and one that I won't dare admit to just anybody—why I took up a German language course once. Sure, you can find dozens upon dozens of English translations of these songs online, but it's still much better if you can just listen to it and know that you understand it without even reading some kind of translation. Yeah, a lot of these lyrics really struck a chord in me, like "Without you, I cannot be" and "Without you I am also alone." I don't know why. Maybe it's because I've got a Yeerk in my head.

_Hey, maybe you can use that for your story, Jen_, Yemra said, bringing me out of the trance-like state that listening to music usually puts me in. _It's about a Controller who's gotten so dependent on her Yeerk that she thinks that she might actually be addicted to her Yeerk._

((What?)) I snorted mentally. ((I'm too young to write my autobiography, Yems.))

_Oh, so you think that you're addicted to me, eh?_ Yemra teased. _Well, there's a shocker. Anyway, you don't even have to say that it's you. Just change a few details here and there and call it young adult fiction. That's what's selling right now, right?_

((You may be onto something right there, Yems,)) I agreed. ((But I'm just kidding with the autobiography part. There's no way I'm addicted to you.))

_Yeah, right_.

I took out one of my slightly used (read very, very used) notebooks from my bag, along with a pen, and put them down on the counter. I was just about to write the first sentence of my potential bestseller when the door of the diner opened, and two men walked in. They weren't quite your average ordinary men, if you get my drift. They were both wearing overcoats too big for their bodies, leather gloves too small for their hands, scarves that would have been tacky even in the 80s, and matching fedoras or trilbies or whatever those hats are actually called. Basically, the two of them had dressed up like Al Capone's gangsters, and they were not quite succeeding at it too.

"Can I get you guys anything?" I asked them as I yanked off my earphones.

One of the gangsters took a look at the menu above the counter and said, "Get me a turkey club." He even spoke with some kind of accent, probably New York or Joisey. I so much wanted to tell him to drop the obviously fake accent because it wasn't suiting him at all.

"How 'bout you?" the man asked his friend, or buddy, or associate, or companion, or whatever you want to call it. "Whatcha want?"

"Get me a turkey club too," the second man replied.

"I'm sorry, guys, but the turkey club is for dinner only," I replied.

"Then why in the Kandrona did you put it on your menu?" the first man asked.

"Don't ask me, ask the boss," I replied.

"Bright girl," the first guy said. "Ain't she a bright girl, Gedis?"

"Definitely a bright girl, Temrash," Gedis replied. Now I was quite nervous. Nobody—no human at least—would name their kids Gedis or Temrash. Those were definitely Yeerk names. And these guys in front of me were definitely Yeerk nothlits. But as to why they were dressed up like old-time gangsters, I had no idea at the moment.

_By the Kandrona, Jen_, Yemra said, _it looks like trouble has a way of finding you whenever it wants._

((Maybe you mean us, not just me,)) I retorted. In the "privacy" of my own mind, of course.

"Hey, bright girl," Temrash said. "What's your name?"

I considered telling him my middle name, the dreaded Y word. But my pride got the best of me, and I obviously didn't want some stranger calling me "Yelena"—shudder—so instead I just settled for my full first name. "It's Jennifer," I told Temrash.

"Jennifer," Temrash repeated, rolling the word over his tongue, still sounding like the guinea that he most certainly wasn't. "Beautiful name for a bright girl. Ain't it a beautiful name, Gedis?"

"Very beautiful," Gedis parroted.

((Fuck, Yemra,)) I told my Yeerk. ((I'm really scared right now. I have no idea of what they want or what they're doing here in the first place.))

_Just keep calm and carry on, Jen,_ Yemra replied. _Let's see where this is going first._

((That's easy for you to say. No one can see you almost shitting yourself in fear.))

"So, Jennifer," Temrash asked, "what _can_ we eat here?"

"We've got spam and egg sandwiches," I replied.

"Whatcha got to drink here?" Gedis asked. "Scotch, bourbon, whiskey, vodka, anything hard?"

"We only have water and some soda here," I said. "Mr. Tenkiss doesn't serve any liquor in his diner. If you want some hard drinks, then maybe you could try his bar, but's it's most probably not open yet."

"Well, that's a shame, that is," Gedis said. "Just give us the sandwiches, and while you're at it, why don't you get Mr. Tenkiss here too?"

"Whatever you say, man," I muttered. I walked over to the kitchen and knocked loudly on the wall. "Yo, Ed!" I said. "Two spam and egg sandwiches, and I need them yesterday!"

"I'm up!" Ed, the cook, said as he was startled awake by my knocks. You know it's a very slow business day if your cook ends up sleeping on the job. Just before I left the kitchen, I heard the sizzling sound of meat being cooked on the grill. I then walked over to Mr. Tenkiss's office, where I found him deep into balancing the books. "Boss, we've got a customer who wants to talk to you," I told him.

"Really?" he asked me, not looking up from his ledgers. "Can't you just take care of what he wants?"

"He asked for you personally."

Mr. Tenkiss sighed. "All right, I'm coming," he said, and he followed me out of his office. As I returned to my place behind the cash register, Mr. Tenkiss turned to our two customers and said, "How can I help you gentlemen?"

"Your girl over there says that you don't serve any liquor here," Gedis asked, jerking his head in my direction. "That true?"

"This is a diner, gentlemen," Mr. Tenkiss replied. "It's not a bar. And unfortunately we're fresh out of Coke and Pepsi, so we're really only serving water tonight."

"Well, Gedis, if the owner says it, then it must be true, right?" Temrash asked.

"Maybe, Temrash," Gedis replied. "Maybe." Mr. Tenkiss's eyebrows rose when he heard the two men calling themselves by name. So he knew that Gedis and Temrash weren't human names, too. I had no idea how he would react to that, though.

"All right, give the two of us some water," Gedis said.

"You heard the man, Jen," Mr. Tenkiss told me. "Get them some water."

I filled two glasses with water from the dispenser while Mr. Tenkiss walked back to his office, and I handed the glasses over to Temrash and Gedis. While Gedis sipped his water, Temrash turned to face me and said, "So, Jen's short for Jennifer, huh? Funny. I thought you were the Jenny type of gal."

"Please, don't call me Jenny," I mumbled.

"Why?" Temrash snorted. "You don't like it, bright girl?"

((Oh, shit, Yemra,)) I thought. ((I'm really scared right now. What kind of game are they playing?))

_Like I said before, don't rush things_, Yemra replied. _Let's see how things go_.

((Damn it. I've never really liked waiting.))

_Hah! Like I can't tell_.

"Spam and eggs," Ed called out from the kitchen. He laid two plates on the window between the kitchen and the counter. As I took the plates, the smell of grilled spam and eggs tickled my nostrils, and Yemra said, _If we weren't in such a very strange situation right, I would already be fantasizing about that spam right now_.

((Don't worry, Yems,)) I replied. ((If these two nothlits just wanted to eat out and happened to look like some old-timey gangsters while they're at it, then we're gonna get some spam and eggs for ourselves.))

_I'll be sure to remember that_, she teased.

I laid the plates down in front of Temrash and Gedis. Temrash stared at his sandwich and then lifted it up with his gloved hands. "Is this it?" he asked.

"All or nothing," I replied. "Any complaints, take them to the cook."

"Huh." And then Temrash tucked into the sandwich. Beside him, Gedis did the same. They ate with their gloves on, and they ate noisily, slurping the yolk and the leftover oil in the Spam, and they chewed very loudly. I found the noise somehow disturbing, so I just stuck my earphones back in and turned up the music.

"Yo, bright girl!" Temrash called out. He clapped off the breadcrumbs on his gloves to get my attention.

"Huh?" I blurted out, yanking off my earphones again.

"Do me a favour and get your manager back here." Almost as an afterthought, Temrash added, "And while you're at it, get the cook up front too."

((Oh, man,)) I thought. ((Now what?))

_Just wait and see, Jen_, Yemra repeated.

I knocked on the kitchen walls once again. "Ed, up front!" I called out in a much braver voice than I thought I could possibly muster. I then walked over to Mr. Tenkiss's office, stuck my head inside, and said, "They want to talk to you again."

"Really? Again? Come on!" But Mr. Tenkiss still went out of his office and to the counter. There, we saw that Gedis had stood up and was now standing in front of the diner door, looking out for anyone who might enter. Temrash nodded to him once Mr. Tenkiss and I were on the counter, and Gedis moved back beside him.

"All right, this is what we're gonna do," Temrash said. "Mr. Manager and the cook will be going to the back. Bright girl over here will stay on the counter. Gedis, take the guys out back."

"All right, what's this all about now?" Mr. Tenkiss asked.

Temrash opened his overcoat and revealed the butt of a pistol sticking out of the waistband of his pants. Mr. Tenkiss's hand immediately went for his right hip before he realized that he wasn't armed. I'd heard that Mr. Tenkiss had once been a cop in Baltimore or DC before coming up here to Pennsylvania, but I've never seen any proof of it until now. "Okay, man, there's no need to be waving weapons around here now," Mr. Tenkiss said.

"Oh, don't worry, sir," Temrash replied as he drew out the pistol, a Beretta 92. "We ain't gonna use these on you. At least not yet. Now, come on! Off to the kitchen with the both of you!"

"As for you," Temrash said, looking at me right in the eyes, "you're gonna stay here and shoo away anyone who tries to come in here."

"Why the hell would I do that?" I asked with more courage than I knew I had in me right now. "And what if whoever they are keep at it?"

"This is what you're gonna tell 'em, bright girl," Temrash said. "You say that the cook's out, and if they still wanna eat, tell 'em you're gonna cook their food, and it has to be takeout. Got that?"

As Gedis led Ed and Mr. Tenkiss into the kitchen, Temrash took the seat right in front of me and laid down his gun on the counter. "Look, bright girl, don't look so scared at my gun," he said to me. "Depending on what happens next, I'm not gonna use it on you or your boss or your cook. Besides, it would be an absolute waste to use it on a bright girl such as you."

I kept quiet. It was my default danger-avoidance mode, on the quite probably faulty assumption that if I keep silent, then maybe the danger would pass and not notice me.

"Hey, Jennifer, bright girl," Temrash called out. "You wanna know why we're doing this?" I kept my mouth shut, as one should do in a situation such as this. "I'm-a tell you anyways," Temrash continued. "Gedis and I are here to kill a Yeerk." There was no hint of irony in his voice. It was like he was just stating a fact.

_Uh-oh_, Yemra said. _Now I'm scared. I hope he's not talking about me._

((I don't think Temrash is talking about you, girl,)) I replied. ((And weren't you the one that told me to just sit back and look at what happens? Why don't _you_ do it?))

_That was before he said anything about killing Yeerks!_

((You're just a big coward like me, admit it.))

"There's a Yeerk in this area," Temrash continued, unaware of my conversation with my Yeerk, "goes by the name of Yibey Nine-One-Five. But sometimes he's also known by other names. Like Ken, for instance."

_Yibey Nine-One-Five?_ Yemra repeated. In my mind, of course. _I think I remember that name._

((You know this Yibey guy?)) I asked my Yeerk.

_Yes, Jen, but it's been so long… I wonder if he's a nothlit, or if he's managed to keep his real body and his host._

"Do you know this Yibey guy?" I asked, breaking my own rule of quiet compliance in danger situations.

"No," Temrash admitted.

"Then why do you want to kill him?"

"Because he's a traitor, that Yibey _dapsen_ is," Temrash replied. The hatred was dripping from his tone. "He chose to hide among you humans instead of living with his Yeerk brothers and sisters as nothlits. Yibey chose the good life of a hosted Yeerk over the suffering that we nothlits experience on a daily basis. He's a traitor, a fucking collaborator! Fuck that _dapsen_!"

"Okay, I can see that you've got some hate for the guy," I said, but _some_ would be an understatement. "But still, why would you want to kill him?"

"Bright girl like you should know why by now, what with what I've already told you." Temrash's hand was on his gun once again, but he wasn't pointing it at me yet. "And you should also know when to talk, and when not to talk," he added with a hint of menace.

A few minutes passed, and then I saw a taxi stop right in front of the diner. The driver of the taxi hopped out and went into the diner, but not before Temrash hopped over the counter and hid behind it, gun in hand. The taxi driver walked right up to the counter, looked around, and asked me, "Where's everybody?"

"Out," I replied. "Cook's sick, and Mr. Tenkiss asked me to hold down the fort for him while he's running some errand or something."

"Well, that's a shame," he said. The driver looked around once again and sighed. "Well, I gotta go," he said. "I was looking to get something to fill my stomach, but I guess I'll just have to wait. What the hell, it's just thirty minutes more." And having said that, he left the diner.

"Good job handling that guy," Temrash told me as he rose up, jumped over the counter once again, and took his seat.

"Hey, Temrash!" Gedis shouted from the kitchen. "Is the _dapsen_ here already?"

"Not yet, Gedis," Temrash replied. "Traitor usually eats here at six o'clock for his dinner. He's running late, the _filshig_."

I dared to glance at the clock hanging just above the door. It was already six-fifteen PM. Shit, I thought to myself. How much longer was this going to take? If this wasn't over any sooner, I could just end up peeing my pants out of sheer fright. And just when my period had finally ended…

More minutes passed, and another car stopped in front of the diner. The guy that got out of the car and went into the diner was Mr. Thompkins, a familiar face. He was a regular in the diner, and he looked like one of Mr. Tenkiss's old acquaintances from when he was still a cop or something like that. Once again, Temrash jumped behind the counter to hide before Mr. Thompkins went in. Mr. Thompkins walked over to the counter and said, "Hey there, Jen. Where's everybody?"

"Out," I replied. "Ed called in sick, and Mr. Tenkiss asked me to watch the diner for him while he ran some errand or something."

"Well, that's a shame," Mr. Thompkins replied. Oh, great. This scene was playing out almost the exact same way that it did a few minutes before. I seriously did not want to add some _Groundhog Day_-style shit to my already long list of problems today.

"All right, Jen," Mr. Thompkins said. "Why don't you just get me some of those spam and egg sandwiches of yours?"

"Okay, Mr. Thompkins," I replied. "But I don't make them the same way that Ed does his."

"I'll live," Mr. Thompkins joked. I walked over to the kitchen and heated up the grill. Ed still had more than half a can of Spam left over from when he made Temrash and Gedis's sandwiches an hour ago. Man, was it just an hour? It had felt like entire years had already passed by.

I sliced off some more Spam from the leftover block and put them on the grill. The smell of Spam being fried tickled my nose once again. _Jen, this is your chance_, Yemra said. _Make us a sandwich, woman!_

((Oh, come on, Yemra!)) I screamed in my mind. ((Don't you try telling me what to do! Especially not now!))

_Don't make take control without permission!_

I tuned out Yemra and walked over to the walk-in freezer to get the eggs for the sandwiches. Just before I entered the freezer, I saw what Gedis had done to Ed and Mr. Tenkiss while I was busy shooing off would-be customers. Ed and Mr. Tenkiss had had their arms and legs bound with duct tape, and more tape was on their mouths. Gedis was standing over them covering them with his own pistol, a SIG Sauer by the looks of it. Seeing my boss and co-worker tied up like pigs to the slaughter brought mixed emotions within me. Ed was the type of guy that I expected to see being tied up by even the most inept robber. But Mr. Tenkiss? The dude's a freaking former police officer! He even looks like Channing Tatum, for God's sake! He should be out there, beating these two would-be killers into submission, not tied up in the back like a regular guy. Maybe he had decided that any violence now would just cause more problems for the long term, and so he decided to cooperate with the wannabe assassins.

"Come on, bright girl," Gedis said, pointing his gun at me. "Nothing to see here." So I walked out of the storage room with the eggs I needed for the sandwiches. And because I was already at the grill, I decided that I might just indulge Yemra with her Spam and egg sandwich, just to shut her up and not cause any more problems.

_Good girl_, Yemra said, showing me a mental image of a hand patting my head.

((Not now, Yeerk. I am _not_ in the mood for your mind games!)) I flipped the Spam, added two more slices for Yemra's sandwich, and then I cracked open the eggs and poured them in those metal rings that cooks use to shape their eggs into circles and squares and hearts instead of just letting them form into formless blobs. You know what I'm talking about.

Finally, the sandwiches were done. I put the Spam and eggs on some sliced bread and wrapped them in paper napkins before putting them in a brown bag. I held onto the third sandwich as I walked out of the kitchen and to the counter. "Sorry it took so long," I said to Mr. Thompkins, who had taken a seat while waiting for his food.

"That's all right, Jen," Mr. Thompkins replied, taking the brown bag from me. "Oh, and when Eugene comes back, tell him I dropped by."

"I will," I said, smiling a smile so fake I might as well be wearing a mask.

"Have a good night, Jen," Mr. Thompkins said before he left.

Oh, you have no idea how much I'm wishing for a good night right now, Mr. Thompkins, I thought to myself. ((All right, worm,)) I said to Yemra. ((Do you want to enjoy this sandwich or not?))

_I didn't say anything, Jen_, Yemra replied, _but yes, let's enjoy that sandwich_.

As I began to eat the sandwich that I had made, I looked at the clock once again. It was just six-thirty in the evening. Was the diner in some kind of distortion in the space-time continuum? Time seems to be running real slow in this place right now.

"Is he here already?" Gedis called out from the kitchen.

"No sign of the _dapsen_ yet!" Temrash replied.

"Temrash, we've had this place under observation for weeks now!" Gedis said. "If Yibey is coming to eat, then he would have come by now! I don't think he's coming tonight."

"You really think he's not going to come, Gedis?"

"If Yibey was indeed going to eat here, then he would have definitely already arrived by now. He's not going to come, Temrash."

Please, please, just get out of here and leave us alone! I practically shouted in my mind. _No need to be so loud about it, Jen!_ Yemra said. _Oh, and your egg is running._

"What?" I said out loud. I looked at my sandwich and saw yellow drops of egg yolk running down my fingers and onto my jeans. "Oh, man!" I moaned. "These are JC Penney knockoffs!"

"You got a problem, bright girl?" Temrash asked.

"Shit," I muttered. "I'm sorry," I told Temrash. "But these were my favourite jeans. I gotta clean 'em up."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Temrash said, and he pointed his gun at me. I immediately raised my hands. "Nobody goes anywhere without my say-so!" he said. "Bright girl like you should know that. Now go clean yourself up with some napkins, but you're not leaving my sight."

"Son of a bitch," I muttered. As soon as this ordeal was over, I was going to have to get my jeans washed, and quickly. That egg yolk would take a very, very long time to get out of the denim. I had no idea how long I wouldn't be able to wear them. I wiped off as much of the yolk as I could with the thin paper napkins on the counter to save my knockoff designer jeans as best as I could.

Even more minutes passed, and no one else came into the diner after Mr. Thompkins. Finally, Temrash looked at the clock one more time, sighed, and said, "He's not coming."

"I told you he wasn't," Gedis said. "Now what do we do?"

"Cut them loose," Temrash replied. "We're not here to kill these people, just Yibey." Temrash slipped out of his seat and stuck his gun into his pants. "Bright girl, look at me," he told me. "You can do whatever you want after this. Call 911 or not, or whatever, we don't care. We're just here to do a job." And with that warning, or reminder, or whatever it was, the two nothlits left the diner, leaving behind three confused and fearful humans, and unknown to them, one confused and fearful Yeerk.

"Well, that was odd," Mr. Tenkiss said. "Jen, I heard that Temrash guy talking to you about why they were doing this. What did he say?"

"Temrash said that he and Gedis were gonna kill somebody," I replied. "Some guy named Ken or Yibey or something like that."

"Ken Fuchs?" Mr. Tenkiss asked. "Why in the world would they want to kill Ken Fuchs?"

_Ken Fuchs?_ Yemra repeated. _Now I know that I know him! So the two of them are still together, huh? Well, good for the both of them! Yibey's one of the good Yeerks, and Ken's one of the good humans._

((Okay, by the way you just said that, it looks like you and Yibey know each other very well,)) I said. ((Why didn't the two of you keep in touch after the war?))

_What do you think? Everyone from that part of my life thinks that I'm now dead. Also, Ken and Yibey probably wouldn't even believe you if you walked up to them and said to them that I'm your Yeerk_.

"Okay, Ed, Jen, that's probably enough fun for all of us tonight," Mr. Tenkiss said. "I say that everyone should just go home and try to forget about this. I'm going to tell the police about this, but I don't think they're gonna do much about it. No one got killed, and while they did tie us up, they didn't really mistreat us. If anyone wants to leave now, I'm not gonna stop you."

"Yeah, I think we should all go home now for tonight," Ed agreed.

"I'm with you on that, bud," I told him. "Besides, I gotta change my jeans after I dripped eggs all over them."

"All right, guys, good night," Mr. Tenkiss said. I took my notebook and pen, stuffed them into a plastic bag, put that plastic bag into my real bag, stuck my earphones back into my ears, and walked into the rain away from Mr. Tenkiss's diner.

* * *

A/N: Like I promised in the previous chapter, this one now has some real action going on! Leave a review if you liked it, and leave a review if you didn't! I should say though that the chapter after this will still be more exposition instead of some actual story plotwise. Anyway, read and review!


	9. Jen, Meet Ken

It was still raining heavily by the time that I had gone out of Mr. Tenkiss's diner. Good thing that I had brought a real jacket with me, one that was thick and had a real hood. I wore my hood over my Phillies cap, so now my head was doubly protected from the rain, just the way Mom would have wanted it. I had both of my hands tucked into the pockets of my jacket, and Rammstein was once again blasting away in my earphones. _We're all living in Amerika/Amerika ist wunderbar_… Oh, yeah, America is definitely a wonderful place. It's the only place where you can face two aliens-turned-humans seeking to kill another alien hiding inside a human's head and walk away to tell the tale. _Wunderbar_, indeed.

At least the rain was soaking my jeans almost to saturation point. That would make it easier for me to wash them and get them back into my wearing cycle.

_Jen?_ Yemra said suddenly.

((Yeah? What is it?)) I asked back nonchalantly.

_I think we're being followed._

((What?)) That stopped me right in my tracks. ((Who? Where? How? Why would someone be following us?))

_I don't know, Jen, but I can sense… whoever it is._

"Oh, crap," I muttered physically as I slowly began to walk again. My left hand gripped the object that had been in my pocket, and even though I know it's a biological impossibility, I thought I felt Yemra tighten her grip on my brain.

_Just so you know I'm still here_, she said.

((Thank you, Yems,)) I replied, genuinely meaning it. I removed my earphones as I continued walking down the road. If I was being followed, then I would very much like to hear if they were coming closer to me or not. As I walked, I heard clearly the splashes that my feet made as they waded through the puddles of rainwater, and I also felt the swaying of my hips as I continued on down the street. Strange, the things that you only notice when you feel that your life is on the line…

A hand suddenly grabbed my shoulder. I twisted away from the hand and drew out the taser in my left jacket pocket in the same motion. "Who are you and what do you want?" I shouted at my would-be attacker, making sure that the electric arc on the taser was clearly visible.

"Whoa!" the man said, raising his arms up in surrender. "Calm down now, miss!"

_Wait a minute, is that_—And before I knew it, Yemra had taken control of me, and without asking for permission, too! _I'm sorry, Jen_, she said, _but I had to do it._ And then, using my mouth, she said to the man before us, "Yibey?"

"How did you know my-?" The man blinked, and then he lowered his hands. "Yemra?" he asked. A hint of a smile began to form on his lips, and I could feel Yemra influencing my own mouth to do the same.

Yemra turned off the taser, put it back in my pocket, and then she ran over to the guy—Yibey, if I remember correctly—and wrapped my arms around his waist. The guy did the same to me, although he hugged me on my shoulders because he was a bit taller than I was. ((Okay, so you and this guy totally know each other well,)) I said to Yemra.

_He is Yibey Nine-One-Five of the Culat Hesh Pool_, Yemra confirmed, although we both knew that already since just a few minutes ago, two nothlits with the intention of killing him had turned up at the diner where I worked part-time. _His host's name is Kendrick Fuchs. Ken, for short._

((Shit, I knew that, Yems,)) I replied. ((Okay, this is getting awkward now. I hope nobody sees us like this. He looks old enough to be my dad.))

Yibey/Ken finally released me from his embrace, but he still held my shoulders in his hands. "How did you survive, Yemra?" he asked. "We saw Mallory die before we got out. How did you manage to escape?"

"You have so many questions, Yibey," Yemra replied. Talk about déjà vu. That was like one of the first things that Yemra had told me after she infested me for the first time, all those years ago. "I can't hope to answer them all immediately. And I'd rather that we did that out of this rain."

"Yes, Yemra, of course," Yibey/Ken replied. "There's a bus stop over where we can stay." The two—or four of us, if you're that kind of person—walked over to the bus stop that Yibey had indicated. Once we were in the shade, Yemra took off my hood and cap, letting my soaking wet hair hang down all over my face and my back. She brushed away the strands of hair that clung to my eyes, nose, and cheeks, and tucked them behind my ears. While Yemra was doing that, I took that time to give Ken, Yibey's host, a good look. He was a man who looked like he was nearing middle age, and he had a very high hairline. He actually looked like one of those actors from one of the shows that I like to watch. Yeah, that's it. He looked like Will Arnett from _Arrested Development_.

"I still can't believe that you're alive, Yemra," Yibey said. "When we saw you coming out of the diner, we thought that Mallory had somehow managed to live again. But Ken and I knew that Mallory was long dead, when the invasion was defeated. Nevertheless, we decided to follow you, and when we got close, I recognized you, even as you were within your new host."

"Yes, of course," Yemra replied, using my mouth and voice to speak once again. "I could sense a Yeerk nearby when you were following me, but I had no idea it was you until my host, Jen, confronted you. Oh, and I don't know if you know this, but two nothlits were just in that diner looking to kill you. What was that all about, Yibey?"

"I don't know, to be honest," Yibey replied. "Why do you think I was hiding in the bushes until you came out? Did they tell you anything about themselves, why they wanted to kill me?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, they were quite open with their plans for two nothlits planning to commit a murder. I do remember them saying that they were Temrash and Gedis, respectively."

"Temrash and Gedis, huh?" Yibey repeated as he rubbed his—Ken's—chin. "Temrash is a common name for Yeerks, just like Iniss and Carger. I've met a lot of Temrashes during the invasion, but I can't think of any one of them that would have a reason to kill me. But Gedis, though… The only Gedis I know is Gedis Eight-Seven-Nine of the Makat Dol Pool, but once again I have no idea why he would want to kill me. But enough about that for now, Yemra. How did you manage to escape Mallory and the Pool after the defeat? You have to tell me at least that!"

((Dude's hiding something, Yems,)) I said.

_I know, Jen_, she replied. _But I know Yibey. Just indulge him with his stalling tactics, and then I'll ask him what's really up._

((All right, girl. It's your call. But everyone keeps saying that I look like your old host. Can you at least just show me what she looks like?))

Yemra sighed, and then she showed me a mental image of Mallory Brunner, her host during the Yeerk invasion of Earth. To be honest, I don't think she looks like me. In fact, I think Mallory looks like Ariana Grande, although I'm sure that Ariana was only as old as I was during the last days of the invasion.

"It's kind of a long story, Yibey, to use the human term," Yemra told him. "Yes, Mallory did indeed die when the human military and the Andalites stormed the Pool underneath this city, but I managed to get out of her before she died, and somehow I managed to escape the Pool before the Andalites poured Shredder fire into it. I then ended up in the city's sewage system, a concept that still 'grosses out' Jen even until now."

((Oh, come on, Yemra,)) I said. ((Do _you _know what's going through our sewers?))

"So, how did you end up with Jen?" Yibey asked.

"The sewers eventually led out to the river," Yemra continued. "I spent four days in the river or something like that before I met Jen. Would you believe that I infested her while she was almost drowning? Sometimes, Yibey, I still can't believe my luck."

"Wait a minute, Yemra; did you just say that you just spent four days in a river?" Yibey asked, surprise evident on his face. "That's supposed to be impossible! You didn't go through Kandrona starvation?"

"I know!" Yemra replied. "I thought I was actually going through a fugue while I was in the river, but it turned out to be only my imagination! Anyway, I somehow managed to convince the human authorities that I had been Jen's Yeerk just a few weeks before the invasion was completely defeated. And now, thirteen years later, we're talking to each other once again."

"Wow," Yibey muttered. "Four days in the river, and not suffering through Kandrona starvation to boot? You really are a lucky Yeerk, Yemra Six-Four-Zero."

"Indeed," Yemra said. "I was almost swallowed by a fish, believe it or not!"

"Thank the Kandrona that you manage to escape, eh?"

"Yes." Yemra went silent for a moment, and then she said, "Look, Yibey, while I really do love that we've managed to catch up with each other's lives, I really do have to ask you why someone, a nothlit, even, would want to kill you."

((Wow,)) I said. ((Right to the point, sis.))

_Sometimes it is what it is_, Yemra replied to me. And then, to Yibey, she said, "Earlier, you said that one of the nothlits who wanted to kill you was Gedis Eight-Seven-Nine of the Makat Dol Pool. Now, I happen to remember that Gedis was the adjutant of Visser Eighteen. Visser Eighteen was Temrash Nine-Zero-One-Seven of the Culat Hesh Pool, and he was a ruthless visser, although not at the level of either Esplin or Edriss. Despite all that, he's still a Yeerk that the humans definitely would have wanted to be turned into a nothlit, but why he was allowed to take a human form instead of an animal one, I don't know. I can't remember you doing anything that would have pissed him off, as the humans say, so why would Visser Eighteen and his adjutant want to kill you?"

Yibey sighed. He ran a hand over his host's face, and then he inhaled and began to speak. "Surely you must have seen that video of Yaheen and Cherug threatening to blow up the humans' airplanes if they weren't given the freedoms promised to them in an old treaty," he said. "The Nothlit Rights Movement—or at least some of its more militant members—firmly believe that the Yeerks of the Peace Movement, those that have been allowed to retain their real forms, are part of the conspiracy to deny the nothlits their rights. They believed that the hosted Yeerks have gone native, and that they had fallen in love with the concept of living like a human among other humans. It's the human attitude of 'us versus them,' and now it's also infected the nothlits. Ken and I are in favour of giving nothlits the same rights as humans and recently Hork-Bajir have in this country, but they should not have to go around blowing up aircraft and killing humans just to get their message across."

"Jen feels the same," Yemra replied. "And I admit to having some reservations about giving nothlits equal rights as humans, but I know that it can be worked out. In fact, Jen's exact words for what's happening right now are, 'Everyone's entitled to believe what they want, but it's the extremist wacko nutjobs blowing things up that ruin it for everyone else.'"

Yibey actually burst out laughing. "Oh, yes, that is true," he finally managed to say after a minute or so of sniggering. "Ken believes the exact same thing, too," he added.

That got some laughs from Yemra too. "Ah, yes, speaking of our hosts," she said through her giggles, "I think that it's time that we stopped talking and let our hosts get to know each other by themselves."

"Yes, that is true," Yibey replied. "We have been talking for too long ourselves."

Yemra nodded my head, and then she returned control back to me. In front of me, Ken blinked once, and then he immediately held out his right hand. "Ken Fuchs," he said, a grin on his face.

_Don't worry,_ Yemra told me. _He doesn't bite_.

I gently took Ken's hand. "Jen Carson," I said.

"Jen, you should know that you're very lucky to have Yemra as your Yeerk," Ken told me. "Yibey and I have known her since we first arrived on this planet. Yemra's a good Yeerk. She's loyal to whatever she believes is right, and she really cares about her host. Although I have a feeling that you know about that already."

"Yeah, I guess so," I replied. "You know, Ken, this is actually the first time that I've talked to someone from Yemra's past."

"I'm not surprised," Ken said. "The surviving Yeerks have kept mostly to themselves immediately after the invasion, although some Yeerks are already beginning to reconnect now that thirteen years have passed, but they're discreet about it, and they're mostly catching up in the feeding centers. Can't have people thinking that we're planning a second invasion, can we?"

Even though Ken's joke was as corny as Iowa, I laughed, both out of courtesy and because a small part of me thought that it was actually pretty damn funny.

I felt my right pocket vibrating as someone was trying to call my cellphone. Actually, it wasn't a call, but a text from Mom, asking me if Mr. Tenkiss had sent us home early because of the rain, and if I was adequately protected. Of course, that wasn't actually what she texted me, but you get what I'm getting at. Okay. I had five minutes to reply before she would begin calling me incessantly, so I turned to Ken and said, "I'm sorry, but I gotta go. My mom's already looking for me."

"All right, Jen, don't let me keep you," Ken replied. As I got up from the bus stop, he asked me, "How old are you? Nineteen?"

"Twenty-one, actually."

"That strict? Have you even had a boyfriend yet?"

"Not yet, actually. I've had lots of crushes, but never anything as serious as a boyfriend." I don't know why, but something is making me open up to Ken right now. Maybe it's because he's a fellow Controller. But I don't know.

"Don't worry about it, Jen," Ken said. "Sooner or later, your parents will eventually loosen up with you."

"Yeah, man. I really hope that it's sooner rather than later."

"All right. Goodbye, Jen Carson."

"Goodbye, Ken Fuchs," I repeated. "Sorry for almost tasering you earlier." Ken waved off the apology.

As I finally began walking back towards home—but after I answered Mom's text—Yemra said, _If you do finally get to have a date, I'm your chaperone. No buts, no negotiations; the decision's final._

"Somehow I thought you were gonna say that, Yems," I said out loud.

* * *

A/N: As always, leave behind a review whether you like it or not. I really appreciate knowing what you guys think! - GR


	10. Some Nightmare I Had

It was raining heavily once again as I walked down the street that my house was on. The rain was soaking every fiber of my being, from my jacket to my jeans to even my bones. I couldn't even remember the reason why I had decided to walk home from wherever I had come from. Whatever, man. I'd probably remember soon enough.

_Jen, someone's following us_, Yemra told me suddenly. _I can feel them following us._

I looked around, searching for my stalker, and my hand gripped the taser in my pocket just that little bit tighter. I continued walking, hearing my footsteps in the puddles a lot more clearly than I had before.

I heard more footsteps behind me. I steadied my breathing as best as I could, and then I turned around, took out the taser in my pocket, and aimed it at the general direction of whoever was following me. But he—whoever he was—he moved very quickly. In just one motion, he had taken my wrist and shook the taser out of my hand. He picked it up, turned it on, and jabbed it right at my chest. Powerful electric currents raced through my body from where the taser had made contact. I heard Yemra yelp in surprise as the electricity hit her, and soon I couldn't even hear her anymore. I collapsed to the ground, all control of my muscles lost in the current.

I felt a pain in my ear as Yemra struggled out of my head, trying to escape the electricity. I heard a soft splash as she landed on the pooled rainwater. Then I heard footsteps. I tried to command my head to turn towards the source of the steps and eventually, through much pain, my head finally followed my orders.

I saw Yemra, a small gray slug trying to scrunch-thrust her way out of trouble. And then I saw a big black shoe near where Yemra was. The shoe then went up, and then went down hard on the struggling Yeerk.

"Yemra!" I shouted. And then I woke up, realizing in that moment that it was all just a dream, and that I had just been shouting out the name of my Yeerk out loud. I was back in my room, in my home, sitting up on my bed. My heart was practically trying to jackhammer its way out of my chest.

_Jen! What's going on!?_ Yemra asked, proving that she was still in my head, and that it was all a bad nightmare.

((I just had a nightmare, Yemra,)) I said. Yemra then accessed my memories and watched my dream, as it happened. Even seeing it for the second time and knowing that it was all just a dream, I still whimpered a little when I saw the black shoe crush Yemra.

_Okay, Jen, calm down now,_ Yemra said once she was finished looking at my memories. _It's all just a dream. It's over now. It's okay. I'm still here._ She then showed me images of her wrapped around my brain.

((I can't stand to lose you, Yemra,)) I said as the tears flowed down my cheeks. ((I'm not the same person without you, Yemra. This Jennifer Carson would not be the same without you, Yemra. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you!))

_Hush,_ Yemra said. _Don't talk like that, Jen. Even without me, you're still very much Jennifer Carson_.

((No, Yemra,)) I retorted. ((You've been with me for more than half my whole life by now. You've been there for everything that's every happened to me. You were there with me at my highest, and you were there for me when I was at my lowest. You're practically part of my life now! You're as important to me as breathing! I can't lose you, Yemra!))

_All right, Jen_, Yemra said with a sigh. _What do you want me to do?_

((Stay with me, please, Yemra. Just keep talking to me. Keep reminding me that you're still up there.))

_What do you want me to talk about, Jen?_

((Anything! Just let me keep hearing your voice.))

_All right, Jen_. And as Yemra began talking about the first thing that came to her mind, I curled up into a fetal position on my bed and cried a little more. I didn't even pay attention to what Yemra was saying; just knowing that she was still able to talk to me was more than enough reassurance for me. I stayed in that position for what felt like an eternity but was most probably just an hour or two, crying myself dry while Yemra talked about anything and everything under the sun. Finally, after those two hours had passed, Yemra asked me, _Are you okay now, Jen?_

((Yeah, I think so,)) I replied. I finally mustered enough strength to get up from my bed and walk towards the bathroom. It was seven in the morning according to my phone, and weak sunlight poured in through the bathroom window. It was bright enough for me to not have to turn on the light, but it was still dark enough to say that it still just a bit after dawn. I walked over to the sink and washed my face with water. If I didn't do that, I would end up with crusty grits in the corner of my eyes and the valleys between my cheeks and my nose.

I chanced a look at myself on the mirror. I looked like hell, to put it lightly. My hair was all messed up, but then again that was to be expected. Nobody except people in the movies and TV woke up with good hair. But my eyes were all bloodshot from all the crying I've been doing. My mouth was a thin grim line between my lips.

_Do you see that, Jen?_ Yemra asked me.

((Yeah,)) I replied. ((That's me after crying my eyes out just trying to get you to stay with me.))

_Well, you're right about that, Jen_, Yemra said. _But that's not my point, actually._ She took control of my right arm and pointed a finger at my head. _Do you know what's that, Jen?_ She asked me.

((Uh, my forehead?)) I replied.

_Exactly_, Yemra said. _And behind all that skin and bone is me, wrapped around your brain._ Yemra traced a circle on my forehead with my finger. _If you cut through all the skin and bone there, you'll see me, Yemra Six-Four-Zero of the Zek Danet Pool, wound like tape around your brain. Isn't that what you want?_

((I'll take your word for it, Yemra,)) I said. ((But there's simply no way that I'm gonna do brain surgery on myself.))

_You shouldn't do that, actually,_ Yemra said. _Anyway, that's where I am, and that's where I'm ever going to be. We're already two of the closest beings on Earth. Nothing could ever have a hope of separating us. Remember that, Jen._

((Aw, Yems, that was so sweet,)) I said. ((If I could kiss you, then I would have kissed you already.))

_Yeah, I don't think I want you kissing me, Jen_, Yemra said. _Remember when you accidentally bit that guy's lips when you had your first kiss?_

((Don't worry about that, Yems,)) I said. ((I certainly will try very hard not to bite your head off if I kiss you.)) And just like that, I felt all right again. Once Yemra and I were back to friendly ribbing with each other, I knew that we were both okay. I stepped out of the bathroom, combed my hair so I didn't look like I had just woken up, and then I went downstairs to the kitchen to drink some water. When I got down there, Dad was already cooking breakfast. It looked like we were going to be having eggs and bacon today.

"You're up early today," Dad said as I entered the kitchen. He took out another plate, a knife and a fork, and laid them down on the table at my usual place. As he ladled eggs and bacon on my plate, he looked at me more closely. "Have you been crying?" he asked me.

"It's nothing, Dad," I replied. "Just a nightmare that I had."

"Well, it can't be just a nightmare if you cried because of it," Dad said. He sat down and continued, "Come on, Jennifer, let's talk. What was the nightmare about? Was it about the crash?"

I looked up at Dad and raised an eyebrow. "Look," he said, "it's absolutely all right to be crying about something like the plane crash. Hell, I've been having dreams about the crash myself, and I've really come close to shedding some tears because of them."

"Look, Dad, I don't want to talk about it, all right?" I said as my nibbled on my bacon. "Please?"

But Dad still persisted. "Was it about Yemra?" he asked.

I almost dropped my fork when I heard my father say my Yeerk's name out loud. I mean, I have introduced Yemra to my parents, but in general, Dad acts like she's not even there. To see him talking about Yemra just like that… well, it surprised me, to say the least. "I heard you screaming her name out earlier," he said in reply to my unasked question. "In fact, I think the whole neighborhood heard you."

"Was it really that loud?" I asked Dad meekly.

"Don't worry about it, Jen, I was just exaggerating," Dad replied, patting my hand. "Look, just because I don't talk much about Yemra doesn't mean that I don't think she should be here. Jen, don't think for one second that I don't like Yemra, because I do like her. She's practically a part of the family now. And I've noticed the impact that she's had on your life. When you were young, you were the shyest kid that I've ever seen. But then Yemra came and, well, infested you, and while the changes have been gradual, I've noticed that you had that extra spring in your step, and that you're now more confident and assertive. You've done things today that I'm sure the young you would have hesitated doing if you didn't have Yemra in your head."

"Well, Yemra did help me become more confident and comfortable with myself," I said. "And it also helps a lot when you've always got your BFF with you."

"I can only imagine how you feel about that kind of arrangement," Dad said as he began to attack his scrambled egg.

"She sees everything I see, Dad," I said. "And she knows everything I know. And she goes everywhere I go. Sometimes it gets on my nerves because, you know, some of these things are supposed to be private, like, well, going to the bathroom. Sometimes, it's hard to pee when you know you've got an alien creature in your head watching everything I do—"

"Okay, Jen, we're beginning to stray into no-go territory now," Dad said. "Why don't we just eat breakfast?"

"Okay, Dad," I said with a grin. "I'm shutting up now." But even as I began tucking into my bacon and eggs, I turned to Yemra and said, ((See? Even my dad agrees that you've become a very important part of my life.))

_All right, all right,_ Yemra sighed. _I will admit defeat, for the moment. Now stop gloating and eat your food._

I had to concentrate really hard not to laugh at that. Man, it felt really good to be able to laugh after all that happened just when I woke up.

* * *

A/N: Apologies for not getting this up as soon as I could. School and other things are catching up to me, and I've not had the time to make my stories at the rate I used to. You'll also notice that I've changed the title of the story, as well as parts of the summary. Hopefully that's going to get this story noticed more. As always, drop a review or a follow or a favorite if you liked it, and even if you didn't. Cheers! - GR


	11. Now Things Are Getting Serious

It was just a day after I had that nightmare in which I thought I had lost Yemra forever. Unfortunately, today was also the day that Yemra had to come out of my head to "reconstitute" herself, or so she says. Usually we did that in the comfort of my own room, but today Yemra had decided that she wanted to visit the feeding center, for what purpose she wouldn't tell me. Of course, I protested, since it _was_ just a day after I had that nightmare where I saw her get crushed by someone's foot, and the memories of that bad dream were still fresh in my mind. If you're the kind of person that doesn't easily forget stuff like that, which I am, then those bad memories will be stuck in your head for a long, long time.

_Oh, come on, Jen, it's the middle of the day!_ Yemra told me as we were walking over to the feeding center. _No one's gonna go to the Pool to pluck me out and squash me right in front of you!_

((But still, Yemra, I don't want to take that risk!)) I replied. One of the few disadvantages that humans had when it comes to Yeerks is that a Yeerk can immediately take over its host's functions whenever it wanted, while the human was powerless to take control back from the Yeerk. It's one of the many reasons why people are still distrustful of the humans that wanted to become Controllers and those Controllers that decided to stay with their Yeerk after the war. Sure, there was some kind of chemical or something that was currently making waves because its makers claimed that it could help humans regain control of their bodies from their Yeerks if some kind of situation that required that kind of change in control was needed. It was confusing, honestly, and I'm not the kind of person that could stand confusing.

When I had refused to go to the feeding center as part of Yemra's "experiment," she just up and took over without my permission. She made me take some of my notebooks and pens and then she returned control to me once we were already within sight of the feeding center. That was just one of a handful of times that Yemra had forcefully taken control of my body, but this was the first time where she didn't give me any warning at all, she just went and took over.

That brief glimpse of life as an involuntary Controller made me see why there were still people who didn't trust the Yeerks, even the ones in the Peace Movement. Even though they did not forcefully take over their hosts' functions, they still had the capacity to do it, and that was what was making people still nervous and edgy about them.

_Look, Jen, I'm only doing this because if you had your way, then you wouldn't even let me out of your head anymore,_ Yemra said. _Besides, it's only going to be two hours of me wading in the Pool, maybe gathering some gossip from the other Yeerks in there_. _Besides, you've got your stories to occupy your time!_

((But I don't want my stories, Yemra, I want you!)) I replied.

_Oh, don't be such a crybaby, Jen_, Yemra said. _Besides, who knows what will happen to me if I stay in your head for more than three days. I could end up getting permanently attached to your brain!_

((That's even better, Yemra!)) I said. ((That way we're stuck with each other for the rest of our lives!))

_Oh, by the Kandrona, no! Please! I can't stand being in close proximity to your crazy brain for more than three days!_

((Oh, so _that_'s the real reason why you won't stay in me for more than three days. You don't think you can handle twelve consecutive years of being right next to my crazy?))

_Puh-lease, Jen! I'm actually the one that reins in your innate craziness to normal and acceptable standards! Without me you'd probably already be locked up in some mental hospital or whatever their politically correct name is now! Besides, it's probably good for the both of us if you got used to me being out of your head for extended periods of time. It's a good way to dissuade you that you've got an addiction to me._

((I'm telling you, Yemra, I'm not just imagining it. I really am addicted to you!)) I protested. ((You've seen what happens to me when I'm faced with the possibility of losing you forever. I'm a wreck if I don't have you!))

_Don't talk like that, Jen; I'm telling you_. But before I could reply, we were already at the Yeerk pool inside the Human-Yeerk Friendship and Community Center. I knelt down on the feeding pier and waited as Yemra disengaged from my brain and plopped out in the Pool. Of course I felt a little resentment towards her because of the things that we'd just talked about, but then I remembered how lonely I felt whenever she was out "feeding," and so whatever resentment I may have felt for her was quickly replaced by a longing feeling in me wanting her immediate return into my head.

Since I was already there in the feeding center, I decided to indulge Yemra and wait for some time before coming back for her. When you're a writer, times flies fast, and sometimes that can be a good thing.

Yemra's somewhat twisted sense of humor had struck again. The notebook that she had made me bring was the one where I had written that story about the girl who thought she was addicted to her Yeerk. How ironic or coincidental is that? _Thanks for keeping my mind off of you while you're feeding, Yemra,_ I thought. _Real classy_.

Since I was in the right frame of mind anyway, I decided to go on ahead with my story about the Controller who thought she was addicted to her Yeerk for all the right and wrong reasons. And apparently my muse was with me because I somehow ended up producing some long-winded ramblings which overall gist was that my character—obviously based on yours truly—absolutely loves her Yeerk so much that she can't stand the thought of being separated from her, and she therefore starts hating her Yeerk for turning her into such a person. There was a lot of raving and ranting, and some shouting and swearing, but basically it's just me angsting.

I was so engrossed in my story that I didn't realize that two hours had already passed since Yemra went out of my head. Of course I had stopped for a few moments to buy some snacks and drinks, but it wasn't like I hadn't looked at my watch the entire time that I was working on my story. So when I finally noticed that two hours had passed, I almost yelled both in surprise and happiness. Additional proof that time flies when you're having fun. At least now I'll have Yemra back in my head once again.

_See, Jen?_ Yemra asked me once she was fully connected to my brain once again. _That wasn't so hard, was it now? That's proof that you're not actually addicted to me._

((Oh, come on, that wasn't fair!)) I replied. ((First, you took control of me when I wouldn't indulge you in your little "experiment," and then you used my own stories to distract me from missing you!))

_But it worked, didn't it?_

((I guess so,)) I conceded.

_Look on the bright side, Jen. Now you've got three whole days to bombard me with your absolute craziest!_

((I'll be sure to do that, Yems,)) I replied. ((As soon as we're back home.))

We went out of the Pool area and went up to the ground floor. The area that could be called the lobby of the community center was lined with shops that could be considered the standard fare for community centers like this one. There were food stalls, cheap clothing boutiques and maybe some cheap stationery supplies and a second-hand bookshop. Now that my Yeerk was back safe and sound in my head, I was feeling much better, but I still hadn't forgiven Yemra for forcefully taking control from me just a few hours ago. But it wasn't like she was enslaving me, so I was pretty sure that I would end up forgiving her for that in just a few more hours too.

Also, since Yemra was back in my head and would stay there for at least three more days, I could now look forward to those three days. Some of my friends had invited me to go out with them later tonight. It would be a good chance to get out of the house and just have some fun.

Little did I know that those plans were about to come flying out of the window.

I was just a few paces away from the community center's exit when I noticed this dude just about to come in. I don't know why my eyes felt drawn to him. Maybe it was the way that he carried himself; maybe it was his clothes. I just don't know. And then, suddenly, he reached into his jacket, pulled out a gun, brought it up to eye level and fired.

My reaction at seeing a gun being pointed in my general direction was automatic, almost reflexive. I bent my body and dived low and to the right towards the nearest available cover. There weren't a lot of people inside the community center, but once the gunman fired his first shot, the panic and chaos that immediately followed was almost deafening in its intensity. People went every which way in their rush to escape the terror that had suddenly come upon them. The gunman fired at least four more shots, and I heard the distinctive sound of four bodies hitting the floor. People everywhere were screaming: they were screaming in pain; they were screaming for help; they were screaming because there was nothing else that they could do. It was deafening and maddening, and it was especially deafening when you've got a Yeerk in your head screaming along with them.

((Yemra, for the love of God, shut up!)) I tried to shout mentally above her shrieking, which oddly enough sounded like a little girl's scream. All the while I was trying to squeeze myself behind an upturned table in a café that served some kind of cheap Starbucks rip-off coffee.

_Oh, shit, Jen, I'm sorry!_ Yemra said in apology. Her thoughtspeak sounded quite raw after having expended most of it in screaming her imaginary lungs out. _I got a bit carried away_, she said.

((That's the first time that I've heard you say sorry and mean it,)) I thought, a bit sarcastically of course. But even as I said those words, I noticed a woman standing in the middle of the concourse, like a paper target in a shooting range. She looked like a target just waiting to be hit because, honestly, that was what she was right there, a sitting duck in a shooting range that was the community center concourse.

Maybe one day, aliens like Yemra will finally understand why humans do the things we do. But I don't think such a thing would be likely today, since even the humans who do the things that make them ask such questions can't easily answer those questions. Take me, for example. I could have just yelled at that woman to take cover. It was the safe and reasonable thing for me to do. In doing so, I would have remained in my cover, safe and sound, never risking life or limb. But sometimes humans like to go for the risky and dangerous options. Maybe it was for the adrenaline rush. Maybe it was the thought of playing with your own life that makes them tick. Nobody knows, actually.

I tightened up my bag's shoulder strap to keep my bag close to my body. I then lifted myself up to a crouching position, kind of like a runner preparing for a sprint around the track, and breathed in deeply.

_Jen, what are you doing?_ Yemra asked.

((I'm going to save a life,)) I replied matter-of-factly.

I launched myself from behind my cover, my legs acting like springs that brought me both upwards and forwards. I used my forward momentum to break out on a run, right towards the woman in the middle of the community center concourse. I admit that I wouldn't be able to beat Usain Bolt in a competition, but for a soccer forward player, my sprint and pace were good enough.

As I neared the woman, I bent my body forwards and shrugged my shoulders. I was already a bit short for my age, but this woman was probably half a head shorter than I was, so I had to bend myself really, really low.

I hit the woman in her midsection with my right shoulder, which absorbed most of the impact on my part. It was a classic football tackle, and it would have done my dad and cousin Jude—both football fanatics—proud. As we fell towards the floor, I felt a bullet whizz by the spot where the woman's head had been just a second or so ago. The passing shock wave of the bullet rippled the top of my head, and Yemra actually yelped in surprised fear. Or was that supposed to be fearful surprise?

The woman and I laid down on the ground, and then I half-carried, half-shoved her towards the nearest store that I could see, some kind of bookshop for second-hand books and the like. I pushed her behind the first bookshelf in there that I saw, and then I followed her soon after.

_Shit!_ Yemra said. _That one almost killed me!_

((Oh, so it's all about you now once again, huh?)) I said. ((I could have had a hole blown through my skull too! Not to mention that we'd both be dead if that bullet got you.))

_Oh, shush, Jen_, Yemra said. _You'll get over it_.

Well, she was right in a way. I can't help being a bit sarcastic, even in life-or-death situations. It's kind of in my blood.

Meanwhile, I turned to the woman whom I had just saved and asked her, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," she replied. "Thanks for saving me back there."

"It's nothing," I said. "You'd probably do the same thing in my place."

"Maybe," she replied, with a hint of hesitation. "But I'm sure it wouldn't be like the way you just saved me. I never was good at athletics."

"Let me guess; you were one of the last kids to be picked for the teams during gym class."

"You guessed right."

I held out my hand. "Jen," I said. Since we were probably going to be stuck behind this bookshelf for the foreseeable future, we might as well get acquainted with each other. Also, I did save her life, after all.

She took my hand and shook it. "Emily," she replied.

"Are you a Controller?" I asked. "Or are you just tagging along with a friend?" In any other context, if I asked someone if she was a Controller then that might be considered rude, but since we were in the Human-Yeerk Friendship and Community Center, I was with a more open-minded bunch.

"I'm a Controller," Emily replied matter-of-factly. "How about you, Jen?" she asked me. "Are you a Controller, too?"

"Since I was nine," I replied. "Or maybe when I was eight. It was all so long ago that I can't remember exactly how old I was when it happened."

"That young? Were you voluntary?"

"It's a long story," I replied. Both Yemra and I noticed the look of intense curiosity that Emily gave us when I had told her that I had been a Controller since I was eight or nine. But my gut was telling me to not ask about it just yet. At least, not as long as we were stuck inside the community center _Die Hard_-style. Not that I had any illusions of being some kind of John McClane or something like that.

"You just fed?" I asked Emily. "Or were you about to feed?"

"Thankfully, my Yeerk had just finished feeding when all this happened," Emily replied. "Why? Was your Yeerk just about to feed before this?"

"Nah," I replied. "Good thing she also just finished feeding before this shit happened." As I said _shit_, I noticed Emily wince just a little bit. I let out a big and quite possibly exaggerated sigh. "Oh, come on!" I said to no one in particular. "First there was that guy who shot up Ottawa, and then that guy in Sydney that held up that café, and of course there was that attack in Paris! Is going postal the new in thing now or what?"

"If it helps, Jen," Emily said, "I don't think that man is inspired by radical Islamist fundamentalism."

"You think so?" I asked her.

"Well, either that or he decided to hit the first public place that he saw."

"Christ, that's a thought to chill you to the bone," I muttered. And then another thought struck me. "Do you think this could be motivated by the Nothlit Rights Movement attacks?" I asked her.

"Who knows, Jen?" Emily replied. "Maybe he has issues with Controllers. Maybe he's a nothlit, trying to kill as many as his quote-unquote traitor brethren before the police get onto him."

"You really think he's a nothlit out to kill those who remained Yeerks and got hosts?"

"That is possible," Emily conceded. "But then again, nobody knows I'm here. I've made sure of that."

I gave Emily a closer look. There was something about her that really got my interest. "You know, you look familiar," I told Emily. "Have I seen you anywhere before?"

"If you've seen me before, then it's surely not because I'm from here," Emily said. "Perhaps you've seen me on the news or on the Internet. I will tell you this, Jen. Once I tell you who I really am, then you'll probably kick yourself for not recognizing me."

_Uh-oh_, Yemra said. _I sense a big revelation of some kind coming. Gah! The suspense is killing me! Ask her already!_

"Who are you, Emily?" I asked. "Really?"

"I am Tarash Five-One-Four, founder of the Yeerk Peace Movement. And I am the reason why you and your Yeerk are still together."

* * *

A/N: So yes, Anifan's Emily and Tarash are now officially appearing in my fic too! Yes, I did ask permission from her, and she gave it! Yes, anyway, leave a review or a like or a favourite whether you like it or not!


	12. Tarash and the Lone Gunman

_Yemra_

"Nuh-uh," Jen said. "No way you've got Tarash in your head. You're pulling my leg now, Emily." But even as she said it, we slowly both came to realize that Emily was indeed speaking the truth when she said that she was the host of Tarash Five-One-Four. We had seen Tarash in Emily in pictures of the Bush-Aximili-Tarash Treaty that we looked up just some time after the crash. And she had also been on TV being interviewed by the human called Anderson Cooper for the "news program" on human television called "_60 Minutes_." By the Great Kandrona itself! Jennifer Carson, my host, had just saved Tarash Five-One-Four and her host from certain death without realizing it!

"Believe it, Jen," Emily/Tarash told us. "Here I am, the founder of the Yeerk peace movement in the flesh."

"No way," Jen muttered once again. "I thought Aftran was the founder of the peace movement. The books said so!"

"A necessary lie," Emily/Tarash conceded. "Besides, the Animorphs were active mostly in California. And there is some sort of funny irony in having the assumed founder of the peace movement vanish into thin air, like what happened Lore David Altman. It also allowed us to operate behind the scenes without interference."

I had to admit that there as a certain genius in letting others assume that it was Aftran Nine-Four-Two that had founded the peace movement, and not Tarash Five-One-Four. Even Jen was in agreement with me. In her words, it was a very neat bit of misdirection. ((Some people really do love their decoys,)) Jen told me.

"Anyway, since I've introduced myself to you," Tarash said in Emily's voice, "I think it should be fitting that your Yeerk introduce herself as well. With your permission?"

_Oh, by the Kandrona, Jen, please do!_ I said. _Come on, let me see her, touch her, talk to her myself!_

((Oh, man, Yems, you sound like a fangirl about to meet her biggest idol!)) Jen replied. ((Besides, we both know that unless you and Tarash pop out of our heads, you'll never be able to talk directly.))

_Oh, who cares about being literal, Jennifer? _I retorted. _This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! It's not every day that you get to meet one of the Yeerks that allowed the two of us to live in peace after the end of the war!_

((Okay, Yems, I get that she's the real founder of the peace movement,)) Jen said, ((but what did she have to do with Yeerks and hosts staying together after the war?))

_Hello! Bush-Aximili-_Tarash_ Treaty?_

((Oh, right,)) Jen muttered. ((All right, fine, Yemra, you can have full control. Just promise me that you won't go-))

I took control of Jen in a blink of her eyes, and soon I was just positively gushing in admiration over Tarash. ((-full retard,)) Jen trailed off.

"It is a great honor to finally meet you, Tarash—er, Visser," I said using Jen's voice. I even took Emily's hands in Jen's. I hoped they wouldn't mind what we were doing to them.

"Please, you can just call me Tarash…" Tarash trailed off, waiting for me to introduce myself.

"Oh, of course," I said. "I am Yemra Six-Four-Zero of the Zek Danet Pool. Listen, I know you probably already got this thousands of times from other hosted Yeerks, but I just wanted to thank you for all of the efforts that you've made to make voluntary symbiosis between humans and Yeerks possible."

((Jesus H. Christ, Yemra, can you even hear yourself talking?)) Jen asked me. ((You're practically grovelling at Tarash's feet!))

_I know,_ I told her matter-of-factly. _And I don't even care!_

"Yes, I have indeed received much of the same compliments from almost every symbiont that I have met," Tarash said. "They have tended to say the same things you have said whenever they've met me for the first time. And while I am glad to see and hear from people who have benefited from my work, I do believe that we should be focusing on how we are going to survive what is happening right now."

"Yeah, about that…" I said. "I have no idea how to survive in a situation like this, but Jen might." Then to Jen herself, I said, _You better have something, Jen. I'm getting a little bit nervous about this myself._

((Okay,)) Jen replied. ((Ask her if she's got her cellphone on her or something.))

I asked Emily/Tarash. "How is that going to help us?" she asked.

"She wants to make a call," I said. "Jen, I mean."

((Okay, Yemra, get my phone from my pocket and dial the number I'm about to tell you,)) Jen told me. As I reached for Jen's cellphone, she gave me a three-digit number. ((That shouldn't be too hard for you to memorize.))

_Ha-ha-ha, _I told Jen. I dialled the number that Jen had given me on her phone and put it up to my ear. The line rang once, and then a female voice picked up and said, "9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

((Tell her there's a guy in the Yeerk community center who's got a gun and is shooting everyone he sees,)) Jen said.

"There's a guy in the Yeerk community center, and he's got a gun!" I told the 911 lady. "He's shooting at everyone he sees! I'm lucky I got away, but he's still shooting up the place. I don't know how many people he's shot already."

"Yeah, ma'am, we're well aware of the situation there in the community center," the woman replied. "We've already dispatched units there as we speak. We will deal with the situation as fast as possible."

"Checking it out?" I repeated angrily. "People are dying out here!" Right at that moment, another shot rang out in the community center, followed by the pained scream of the woman who had been hit. "Did you hear that?" I asked the 911 woman. "Don't you think that's enough to get you dealing with the situation as fast as you can?"

"Look, ma'am, I'm sorry, but we're just following procedure," the operator apologized. "We are well aware that there's a gunman in the Human-Yeerk Friendship Center, but we still have to go through the stages of escalation before we can do anything against him. Please try to stay calm."

((You heard the lady, Yemra,)) Jen said. ((I think you need to calm down a little. They don't take it lightly whenever their callers get angry at them. And your shouting might attract the shooter!))

_I'm sorry, Jen_, I told Jen, not very apologetically. _Sometimes I just hate your human bureaucracy_.

Right then we heard heavy footsteps walking down the community center's lobby. It wasn't the panicked run of a fleeing survivor, but the steady and measured walk of a man who was out for blood. The shooter.

"Who is it?" Emily/Tarash asked us in a hoarse whisper. "What's he doing?"

I put my fingers to my lips, the universal gesture for silence. Emily/Tarash nodded, and I nodded back and poked my head from behind the bookshelf just a little. The shooter was facing the cheap Starbucks knockoff shop where Jen had hid just before she had tackled and saved Emily and Tarash. He was holding up a pistol, a Beretta 92 according to Jen, and he was pointing it at the coffee shop. He said, "Everybody out! Get out of there or I will shoot!" Both the voice and the gun seemed oddly familiar, but Jen and I couldn't quite put our finger on it. Jen's brain was too busy trying to find a way out of the situation that there simply was no time to invest in memory recollection.

When no one from within the coffee shop responded, the shooter fired his gun. Another scream, from a man this time, rang out from within the now-silent community center, but I also happened to hear the sound of the ejected casing clattering on the ground. Wow. The human body's senses really do become more sensitive when that chemical called adrenaline is introduced into the bloodstream.

"Once more, I ask everyone hiding in this establishment to come out of your hiding places and go to the lobby," the gunman said in an icy tone. "Or else I will come in there and shoot all of you myself, one by one."

((Jesus H. Christ!)) Jen said. ((Whatever his cause is, he's one very dedicated motherfucker.))

We heard more footsteps, this time coming from within the shop. I saw a few people coming out of the shop, hands and arms raised up in the air.

"A wise choice," the gunman said. "Now walk over there and kneel." He pointed his gun at where he wanted his captives to go and kneel down, over to the stairs leading to the Yeerk pool.

"What's going on?" Emily/Tarash asked me.

"I don't know too," I replied truthfully.

"Wait a minute!" an elderly man said to the shooter. "We did what you wanted! We came out of the shop peacefully, just like you asked! Are you still going to kill us?"

The gunman hit the elderly man in the face with his gun. The elderly man fell to the ground, hands on his bleeding temple. A man who was about Jen's father's age and a female teenager went over to the elderly man to help him.

"No one is allowed to speak to me again," the gunman said. "But, to answer your question, no, I will not kill you. Yet. But you will all serve to delay the police's response against me for as long as I tell you to."

((Oh, my God!)) Jen said. ((He's gonna turn them into human shields!))

_It seems that that is what the gunman has planned for them_, I told her.

As the gunman turned to escort his hostages, I pulled my head back to our hiding place behind the bookcase. ((Okay, now's the time to really get the hell out of Dodge,)) Jen said. ((Here's the plan, Yems. Once the guy takes the hostages down to the pool, we're going to make a run for the door. Go and tell Emily and Tarash about it.))

After I had told Emily and Tarash about Jen's escape plan, they gave me a look that made me think that Jen and I had just become a little bit dumber in their view. "Run for the door?" Emily asked me. "What kind of a plan is that?"

"It's the only one Jen can come up with right now," I replied. "I don't have any better ideas. Do you?" When Emily shook her head, Jen muttered, ((Thought so.))

"We are seriously going to be running for the exit?" Emily asked me once again.

"It's just eight steps to the door from the bookshop, or at least that's what Jen says," I said. "Eight steps to freedom, or so she says."

"What about the police outside? What if they shoot us by mistake?"

"I don't think that's going to happen. I mean, look at us. We're two girls dressed in casual clothes. We're not exactly mad gunman material, are we?"

"No, I guess not," Emily/Tarash conceded. "But what if the shooter turns around when we make our run?"

((Shit,)) Jen said. ((I hadn't thought about that.))

"It's a risk we're just going to have to take," I said. Emily and Tarash didn't seem convinced. That was all right. I don't think I've convinced even myself. I know Jen was surely not convinced.

"Move," the gunman told his hostages. When no one seemed to move, he fired a shot into the air. "Next time, I _will_ kill one of you," he said. That finally got the hostages moving. Their footsteps echoed down the now-mostly-empty lobby.

I stood up, still hiding behind the bookcase, and Emily/Tarash followed suit. I returned control back to Jen, and she said, "On my signal," she said to Emily/Tarash, "run." She waited until the footsteps had receded into the distance, and then she said, "Go!" She pushed Emily in front of her, and then we followed and began our mad dash for the door, towards the police, towards safety. However, just before we broke out on a flat-out run, we heard a voice that made our blood run cold.

"And just where do you two think you're going?"

Emily and Jen stopped cold on their tracks. "That's right, I'm talking to you two," the gunman called out to us. "Where do you think are you going? Put your hands in the air, turn around slowly, and face me."

"Shit!" Jen said under her breath. ((I knew this kind of fucked-up shit was going to happen,)) she told me. Slowly, she and Emily complied with the gunman's orders. Jen moved between Emily and the gunman, and I swear I had nothing to do with that. And then when Jen finally turned to face the gunman, her heart quite literally stopped beating and then began beating as fast as a jackhammer. I think my heart would have done the same if I had one.

It was Gedis Eight-Seven-Nine, would-be killer of Yibey Nine-One-Five and Ken Fuchs.

* * *

A/N: Yes, it's another cliffhanger to end this chapter, but that's how I planned it in the first place! The next chapter will be up soon to end your waiting as soon as possible, I promise!


	13. A Bloody Conclusion

_**Jen**_

Gedis Eight-Seven-Nine recognized me at the same moment that I recognized him. A smile slowly formed on his lips once he had figured out when and where he had last seen me before. "Well, well, well, if it isn't bright girl," he said. "I never thought you were the type to consort with my traitorous brethren."

"Do you know him?" Emily asked me. "He seems to know you very well."

"It's a long story," I told her.

"Such a shame about you, bright girl, really," Gedis continued. "I would really like to let you live, but sadly I can't do that now, not with one of my traitorous brothers and sisters hiding behind that pretty face of yours."

"Why are you doing this, Gedis?" I asked him. "Why do you want to kill Yeerks with hosts? Are you one of those Nothlit Rights guys?"

Gedis fired his gun into the air as a warning shot. "Do not speak of that which you do not understand!" he shouted at me. "What do you know of our movement, our noble cause? What do you know aside from the vile slander that that filthy _dapsen_ slug in your head has been feeding you?"

"Then tell me!" I said. "Make me understand!" My God, is this what being a police negotiator is like? Good thing I never wanted to be one.

"Make you understand?" Gedis let out a harsh barking laugh. "While you've got one of those filthy collaborators in your head? Please! Bright girl such as you should know that your Yeerk will just color everything I say!"

"I'll let her out of my head," I offered. "If that's what will make you talk." Please, dear God, don't make him say yes, I thought.

"No," Gedis replied. "You might as well keep your slug," he said with a sneer. "That way _she_ can hear firsthand the truth I am about to deliver."

"When you humans defeated us with the aid of those _filshig _Andalites," Gedis said, "you forced a lot of the defeated into becoming trapped in your species' bodies. To be honest, a lot of us were glad to be finally free of the need of the Kandrona. But what we nothlits find unacceptable is the fact that while we nothlits had been all but abandoned to ourselves by your government, the Yeerks that had declared themselves to be of the peace movement havee been allowed to keep their original forms, and by extension they now have the same rights as their hosts! Tell me, bright girl, where is the equality in that?"

"Wait a minute," I said, feeling a very microscopic and quite possibly imaginary seed of confidence taking root in my gut. "So all this is just about because you nothlits feel like you've got the short end of the stick? Why do you have to kill people just to get your message across? Why not just sit down and talk to us about it?"

"Do you think your government will listen to the nothlits?" Gedis asked, his fingers turning white as he gripped his pistol tightly in anger. "Of course the government will listen to the nothlits! They will listen just as surely as Russia will withdraw from Ukraine! They will listen to us as surely as China will finally give Hong Kong actual democracy! They will listen to us as surely as the Islamic State will accept a peace treaty brokered by Israel!"

Okay. For an alien stuck in a human body, he sure knows a lot about what's happening in the world right now.

"Do you want to know why your government will not listen to us nothlits?" Gedis continued. "This is because there are humans and Yeerks that feed your government lies and slander about the nothlits! There is a plot to kill every living nothlit in the United States! They want to get rid of the prisoners that they received after the end of the war. Less nothlits mean less mouths to feed, not that you've been feeding us much for the past thirteen years. And one of those responsible for the plot is standing right behind you."

I turned slowly towards Emily and Tarash. Somehow, despite all the craziness going on around me, I just couldn't see her, or them, as being possibly behind some kind of nefarious anti-nothlit plot that was most probably just cooked up by some very crazy nothlits that had had a little too much mary jane. "Who? Her?" I asked Gedis, pointing at Emily/Tarash.

"Yes, indeed she is," Gedis replied. "Hello, Visser Five," he said to Emily. "Or should I call you by your host's name now? To think that I used to look up to you back in the day. I should have seen it back then. The ratio of voluntary hosts to involuntary ones in this area was unbelievable: twenty voluntaries per involuntary! The next best thing the others could only achieve was ten voluntaries to one involuntary. And then, after the war, Visser Eighteen and I found out that you, Tarash Five-One-Four, Visser Five of the Yeerk Empire, was actually the founder and leader of the 'peace movement' collaborators! Right then and there, we realized that no nothlits can have equal rights with the humans until we have eliminated the traitors, the collaborators working against their fellow brother and sister Yeerks."

By then the group of hostages that Gedis had ordered to the Yeerk pool to serve as his human shields had stopped in their tracks and were watching the three of us. I felt Emily stiffen a little behind, and when she spoke, I knew that Tarash had taken control of her. "There is no plot to eliminate the nothlits," she said. "Not from the peace movement, anyway. Nor has there been any. The Human-Yeerk Alliance is actually working with the human Congress to give you nothlits the rights that you have asked for. Why would you have to kill me to get those rights? Or all the other people in here, for that matter?"

"Of course, that is what you're going to say in front of all these humans and the collaborator slugs inside their heads," Gedis said. "All the more reason to kill you, to get rid of your poisonous slander and lies once and for all. Do you have any last words, Visser? Perhaps I should start first. Your ancestors should never have come out of the sludge they call their home pool."

_Oh, no, he didn't_, Yemra said.

I didn't expect the reaction that Gedis's words would get from Tarash/Emily. She tried to step forward, possibly to get within range of Gedis and attack him. I managed to hold her back, but it proved to be a difficult task. "You take that back!" Tarash shouted at him. "You take that back, you filthy piece of pond scum!"

"Go ahead!" Gedis shouted right back. "Give me yet another reason to kill you right here and right now! I've been waiting for this opportunity for many years now!"

"Why do you have to do this!" I shouted above their shouting. That managed to shut the both of them up. "Why do you have to resort to anger and hate and violence just to get your message across?"

"This is the only language that you humans and we Yeerks know how to speak," Gedis said. "You all claim to have no common language with each other, but we all know the truth. War is your common language. Violence is your common language. _Death_ is your common language. Besides, this plan has been in motion for thirteen years now."

"Then why don't you do it?" Tarash said to Gedis scathingly. "Go on, then! Kill me! Kill me now!"

"If only it were that easy, Visser," the nothlit replied. "If I were to kill you right here and right now, then your death will be on the headlines of the human news. You will become a martyr for the humans, and the traitorous Yeerks collaborating with them. I do not intend to do that, Visser. See, this attack of mine on the community center is just the beginning. I can't have the human police knowing that you're my real target, so I have to go to the pool and commit as much bloodshed as I can so that no one will realize that you were one of the victims until it's too late."

Now I see the genius in Gedis's plan. If he had killed Tarash at any time before this shootout in the community center then it would have been very obvious that an assassination had taken place. However, if he was to go on a shooting spree, like he was doing right now, Tarash and Emily would just be one of the many victims that he had claimed. Just like that infamous quote from Stalin: "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

However, just because I realized how devilishly clever of a plan it was doesn't mean I liked it one bit. And it still isn't right to kill another person or being. And Emily and Tarash count for both.

"You would do all that just for your cause?" Tarash asked Gedis. The anger was now gone from her voice, replaced by... I don't know, really. Resignation? Pity, maybe?

"It is the only way," Gedis replied, also with the same near-emotionless tone. Then he turned to me and said, "It is such a pity to kill you, bright girl, but it must be done. For the sake of the nothlits. And your death will help muddy the waters for when your police finally come to investigate this crime."

"Jen," Tarash said, "I am truly sorry that you were dragged into this unsavory mess."

"Don't be," I replied. "I think there's still a chance that we can walk out of here alive."

"What? How can you possibly think that?"

"I have a plan, Tarash. And I also know something that he doesn't."

Gedis pointed his gun at me and then pulled the trigger. That moment, everything went into slow motion. I saw his finger curl over the SIG's trigger and with a little motion from his finger, pushed it. The hammer flew up from its resting position and then slammed hard into the chamber. Except this time there was no more bullet in the chamber of Gedis's gun, meaning the hammer struck only empty air. There was a slightly comical clicking noise that had come from the gun when the hammer struck air, and for a split second, I saw confusion and wonder and frustration enter Gedis's face.

"Run," I told Emily/Tarash. "Fast. Now. Go!"

Emily didn't even need to be told twice. We took off like gazelles being chased by lions. In his all-consuming anger, Gedis had failed to notice that his gun had run out of ammunition. He probably shouldn't have been firing madly into the ceiling when he could have been using those bullets to shoot people up, but then again emotional people were hardly the best rational thinkers. Also, hindsight gives you a much, much clearer look at events than when they're happening to you live.

Emily and I burst out of the doors leading to the community center just as the SWAT were preparing to move in. An officer dressed in black everything: suit, armor, helmet, gun—took the two of us out of the way of the incoming SWAT team, and as this was happening, I could hear the SWAT shouting at Gedis to drop his gun while at the same time telling the people still inside the community center to get down to the ground. Then we heard a burst of gunfire, and I just know that the SWAT had just done in Gedis, most probably because he refused to drop his gun, and maybe he was even pointing it at them in a futile attempt to scare them off, which wasn't a good thing when you've got an empty gun and they've got lots and lots of bullets.

When I turned back to the community center, I could see at least three SWAT officers in black and muted yellow surrounding a body lying down on the ground in an awkward way, and I just knew in my gut that Gedis was dead.

_May the Eternal Kandrona shine down on you, Gedis Eight-Seven-Nine of the Makat Dol Pool_, Yemra said.

((Even when he tried to kill us, Yemra?)) I asked her.

_Personal feelings should not get in the way of granting a brother Yeerk the dignity of a peaceful passage to the afterlife. That is the difference between him and I._

((You know, when all this is over and everyone else has calmed down, I'm going to want a crash course on your Yeerk mythology and religion, if you've got those things.))


	14. But It's Not the End Just Yet

_**Jen**_

So what exactly did happen in the Human-Yeerk Alliance Community Center on that fateful day? Let's start with the "official" story, the one that the media will be repeating to us for as many days before the next big news item comes along. Gedis Eight-Seven-Nine, or Gedis Makatdol as the media will refer to him now, entered the community center with the intention of killing as many people inside as possible, and he managed to claim the lives of at least three people. But what wasn't revealed to the media—or anyone else who wasn't inside the community center at the time of the attacks—was that Gedis' shooting spree was actually just a way to disguise his attempted assassination of Tarash Five-One-Four, the founder of the Yeerk Peace Movement and an instrumental figure in the "Yeerk question," the issue of integrating Yeerks and Yeerk nothlits into human society following their defeat thirteen to fourteen years ago.

As for me and Tarash, the police and the SWAT had already been camped outside the community center, waiting for an opportunity to enter and/or negotiate with Gedis. We had made our break at just the same time that the police had decided that there was no use negotiating with Gedis, so they went in just as we were coming out, and in the ensuing confrontation, Gedis refused to lower his empty pistol and received a face-full of lead for his trouble.

What was my part in the whole thing? Well, I was just content with being the one person—or should that be one person and her Yeerk?—who managed to save the founder of the peace movement, but Tarash just had to go and praise me and my actions on national television, and now I was being hounded by reporters who wanted to know my side of the story. Also, apparently I—or that should probably be Yemra, because she was the one who made the call in the first place—had left my phone on after calling 911, and the operator heard every word in the battle of words between Tarash and Gedis, and that was apparently what had influenced the cops to go in hot on Gedis even though he'd held the community center hostage for just an hour or so at most. All I know is that I'm not going to like the look of my phone bill when it comes next month.

Because of my "heroic acts" on that fateful day, I was now some sort of local celebrity in my city. To be honest, I really didn't like all the attention and publicity I got, my introverted side really wishes that the whole thing had never taken place at all so she could just curl up at home without worrying about anyone recognizing her on her way to her job at a local diner. Speaking of home, my parents' reaction when they found out that I was right in the heart of the crisis as it happened was something you should see to believe. Mom was crying a flood of tears because I, Jennifer Carson, her only child and daughter, had been right in the middle of the community center shooting and was very lucky to have escaped with her life, and then she praised me for being so brave as to save the life of a fellow person. Dad was much, much calmer than Mom was, but on his part, he did admit that those few minutes in which he saw me and Tarash running out of the community center were some of the most heart-stopping minutes of his life.

Now that the "fun" part—if it should even be called that—was over, the survivors of the attack who weren't injured or hurt that much had been brought over to the PD's headquarters for their statements. They were treating it as a crime even though it was basically a mass shooting and Gedis had all but admitted that he was part of the Nothlit Rights Movement, or maybe a branch of it that had become radicalized. Or maybe Gedis had gone lone wolf and abandoned the movement in favour of doing something big by himself.

I had just finished my signed and sworn statement and was waiting for nothing in particular when I saw Emily/Tarash walking towards me. "Hey there, stranger," I said as she sat down beside me.

"What are you still doing here?" she asked me. "You look like the kind of person who would want to go home immediately after something this had happened to her.

"Don't worry about me, Emily," I told her. "I am going home. It's just that my parents have told me to stay put until my uncle comes over to pick me up. The perks of being an only child," I added with a laugh.

To my surprise, Emily laughed along with me. "I know that feeling too, Jen," she said.

"Really? You're an only child too?"

"No, not really, but I've got two sisters and no brothers, so _my_ parents are very much worried about the three of us whenever we go out."

I nodded. "I wish I could relate to that," I said. Then, after a few moments of awkward silence, I continued, "So what were you doing in the community center in the first place?" I asked her. "I mean, I know that you live here in Pennsylvania and all that, but as the leader of the Alliance, I'm sure you move around a lot."

"Oh, yeah, that," Emily muttered as she smoothed over her skirt, and then she straightened her back a little bit. "This is Tarash speaking now, Jen," she said. "What I am about to tell you is confidential and must not leave this room."

"Ooh, I like this," I said, sitting up straighter on the couch and leaning closer to Emily/Tarash. "I feel like I'm a secret agent or something; you know, _Mission: Impossible_ style!"

"I wish it were that simple," Tarash sighed. "Emily also wishes that it were that simple. But, unfortunately, it isn't. When the video of the two nothlits stating that they were the ones who had attacked Flight 6569 was released to the public, the Human-Yeerk Alliance was worried about a more militant and extremist branch or offshoot of the Nothlit Rights Movement that had arisen and was planning further attacks on both the humans and the hosted Yeerks," she said in a lowered voice. "The HYA maintains a presence in all fifty states of the Union, and we were aware that this more extremist branch of the NRM was planning more attacks following the bombing of Flight 6569, but we were not expecting it to happen here in Pennsylvania. I was here to talk to someone in the area who possibly had information for the Alliance before Gedis attacked the community center, but I still have not managed to talk to that contact since then, and I do not know if she survived the attack or not. And Gedis also said that the attack was a plot to kill me. This has me worried and anxious more than I thought it would."

"Don't think too hard about it, Tarash, it's understandable," I said. "I mean, if _I_ found out that that someone was out there planning to kill me, I'd be very worried about myself too."

"I'm worried not only with just myself," Tarash continued. "I worry for Emily's life and safety too because, not only is she my host, she's my friend too. If I am killed, Emily will also probably be killed too. And I don't want that to happen to her."

((Aww, isn't that sweet?))Yemra said to me in my head. ((Visser Five cares about her host as much as you do with me!))

_Well, duh,_ I told my Yeerk. _She is the founder of the peace movement, after all._

I wonder what Emily thinks of that arrangement, though, I thought to myself. And right at that moment, Tarash smiled. At first, I was spooked, because some little conspiracy theory corner of my mind thought that Tarash had the power to read minds, but then the rational part of my brain kicked in and saw that Tarash was not looking at me when she smiled, but rather at the ceiling, or maybe the top of her head. Anyway, she was probably smiling because of something that Emily said.

Tarash then looked at me once again and said, "I have to be honest with you, Jen. Something about what Gedis said in the community center is troubling me. He said that he had been planning this attack ever since the invasion was defeated. This has me thinking that the rumors that I had heard in the last days of the invasion, when it was becoming clearer and clearer that we were going to lose, may actually have a grain of truth in it."

"What kind of rumors?" I asked, even though I had no idea if I was ready for that kind of information.

"This was an idea that the Vissers came up with in the final weeks of the war. The Vissers, having access to a vast array of human military knowledge and history, developed a plan for a secret war against the humans and the Andalites in the event of our defeat, to attack the humans in their cities and encampments—"

"Like a guerrilla war?" I asked.

"Yes, I think that's what it was called," Tarash replied. "But they were unable to contact the Council to ask for permission for the plan before the final defeat. I can only assume that some of the more… fanatical Yeerks who remained here have continued with the plan, and that is what is happening right now."

A secret guerrilla war by the Yeerks who were left on Earth? Now I knew that even the likes of Tarash also had conspiracy theory corners in their minds. But the way she said it, and the fact that she had been a Visser in the last days of the invasion, made me think that there might be more than just rumors going around in her head…

I let out a long breath and took another deep one before speaking again. "Look, Tarash, I know that this day has been probably one of the longest in your life. I'm sure you probably can't wait for it to finally end, but let's just sit back for a moment, relax, and thank God that we're all still alive. You, me, Emily, and Yemra. No one else is going to make an attempt on your life, at least not in the foreseeable future. Unless, of course, that what you're saying about the Yeerks' guerrilla war is true, and one of their main objectives is killing you."

Tarash laughed. "Thank you for giving me hope and then taking it away immediately," she said.

"Yeah, I have been known to do that to my friends more times than not," I replied.

"But you are right, Jen. If the radical members of the Nothlit Rights Movement, which may now have actually been inspired by the Vissers fighting their guerrilla campaign against the humans, believe that I am collaborating with your government to deny them their basic rights, then I am still a legitimate target for them, especially now that Gedis has failed in his mission."

"Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Indeed, it does suck." Tarash/Emily then stood up and said, "If you will excuse me, Jen, I now have to talk to someone here. Once again, I offer you my thanks for saving our lives."

We shook hands. "No problem, Emily, Tarash," I said. "If we were in each other's place, you would've done the same for me."

"Even if I doubt my ability to do what you have just done for me, I think you may be right," Tarash said. Then she blinked, and I knew that Emily was now back in control. "Good night, Jen, Yemra," she said as she walked out of the PD's lobby. _Man, she's certainly one of a kind, isn't she?_ I asked Yemra.

((That she is, Jen, that she is,)) Yemra replied. ((Wait a minute. Are you talking about Emily or Tarash?))

_Does it even matter now? I mean, they've both got that charm and charisma that just naturally attracts people to them._

((Ooh… Are you turning gay for Emily, Jen?))

_Ha! You're one to talk, Yemra! Who was the one who went full retard when Tarash introduced herself to us again? Care to answer that?_

((You win this time, Jennifer Yelena Carson. But next time, I won't admit defeat so easily!)) she said as she sent me a mental image of an evil grin.

_Oh, you'll get over it soon,_ I replied. I then leaned back on the couch where I had been sitting for a long while now, feeling my upper body sink into the soft material. I yawned. My mind was well and truly exhausted from all the crap that I've seen today, and since I wasn't really in the mood to go out of the PD and face the press once again—God knows how hard that was—I decided to close my eyes and let my exhaustion wash over me.

* * *

I was standing in the middle of the hallway of the community center. Blood and bodies were all over, and they were the victims of the man standing before me: Gedis Eight-Seven-Nine. He was pointing his gun at me, and me alone, because this time there was no Emily or Tarash behind me. The entire thing looked like the aftermath of what could have happened if Gedis had been allowed to do his thing in the community center.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked Gedis. "Why do you want to kill all these and their Yeerks?"

"Nothing personal, bright girl," Gedis replied. "But you should've been able to figure that out already. I've got a cause, and I believe in that cause. I believe it so much that when I'm asked to jump, I ask how high? And now my cause has told me that I have to kill all of my brother and sister Yeerks who betrayed us to the Andalites and the humans. They would rather pretend that we are all equal and have the same rights when in reality it is they, the hosted Yeerks who collaborate with the oppressive regime, who have everything, while we nothlits have nothing. I'm just here to show them the error of their ways."

"What the heck, man? You're not making any sense!"

"That's the point!" Gedis shouted. "These attacks are not supposed to make any sense!" He then gripped his gun with both of his hands and said, "I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, bright girl, but you have a traitor in your head, and you will have to die with her." Gedis then pulled the trigger without a blink.

* * *

I was jolted awake by the gunshot in my dreams. The shot had sounded so loud and so real that I thought that someone must have fired a gun in real life, and then I remembered that I was still in the police station, and therefore it was probably one of the CSIs firing a gun to compare the bullet to one of their cases or something like it.

And then I realized that there was some kind of commotion going on in front of the PD building, just outside of the entrance. All the cops had their hands on either their guns or their radios, and they were running for the front door. From what I could understand from all the chatter that they were saying, it seems as if someone fired shots at the building outside, and at least one of them had fired back. But why would someone do something as silly as that?

((Maybe one of Tarash's guerrilla Yeerks are finally starting their uprising,)) Yemra said. ((Or maybe they're just trying to say that they're everywhere and can hit anyone anywhere whenever they like.))

_And you say I'm the one with the crazy, messed-up mind,_ I said. _Wanna check it out?_

((I wouldn't recommend that, Jen,)) Yemra said. ((But imagine that, though. You managed to survive a planned terrorist attack on the community center, only for you to kick the bucket after getting caught in the crossfire while trying to get a glimpse at a retaliation shooting on the police department. You'll be both a funny and dark anecdote for generations to come!))

_All right, here's what I'm going to do_, I told her. _I'm going to stand up, walk over there, and try to see what's going on. It's your choice if you want to stop me or not._ With that said, or thought, or however the hell you communicate to an alien slug in your head, I stood up and began making my way towards the front of the PD building. Yemra kept quiet, but she didn't take control or tell me to stop. I guess curiosity is natural for every living thing in the universe, even for those nefarious mind-controlling, body-snatching brain slugs. I knew it, I thought to myself as I couldn't help but let a smirk form on my lips.

But that smirk was quickly erased as I made my way to the makeshift human barricade of police officers trying to stop exactly what it was that I was planning to do: snoop around and see what's happening.

A ring of policemen had surrounded a small area of the pavement across the street from PD. A few people were trying to look over the shoulders of the police, but I had a much better view of what was going on inside from my vantage point at the entrance to PD. There was a man lying on the ground. Blood was seeping from a hole in his chest, and a gun lay beside him. There was some kind of black bandanna-like thing wrapped around the top of his head, and there were some white markings or writings on the bandanna, but I couldn't read them.

I turned to a policeman who was still holding his gun in his hands and asked him, "What's going on?"

"Some guy tried to shoot up PD," he replied. "Must be working with that guy in the Yeerk Pool shootout earlier. He was shouting something about rights for nothlits or something like that, and then he went postal and fired at the PD. We had no choice; we had to take him down. Shame that I didn't get here before they finally took him down. I would've sent one into his head for my sister, the body-snatching fucker."

((Wow, still not over it after what, thirteen years?)) Yemra asked in the privacy of my mind.

_Yeah,_ I replied. _Still, there's something fishy going on here, and I don't like it._

"All right, everybody, make a hole!" one of the policemen shouted at the forming crowd. "Let the paramedics through!"

Why in the world would a nothlit shoot up the PD just hours after one of his fellow nothlits had been killed while trying to massacre everyone in the Yeerk Pool? If this was some kind of terrorist plot, surely they would wait and lie low before their next attack? I hate to repeat myself, but something doesn't feel right. And then there was that cop that I talked to who had wanted to put a bullet in this second shooter for his sister. People have killed for much, much less, and could it be possible that this whole shooting was staged? I had fallen asleep when this went down, but I'm pretty sure that I would wake up if I heard someone shouting from just outside PD, but you never know. Besides, those last few sentences have probably made me sound like a conspiracy nut.

Gedis Eight-Seven-Nine had killed four people in the community center in an attempt to disguise his assassination attempt on Tarash Five-One-Four, and the police had had to kill him after he refused to put down his gun despite being surrounded. That was surely a terrorist operation if nothing else. But walking right up to the police station and opening fire in front of dozens of on-duty police officers was just suicidal and stupid. Or maybe that was the point, whatever point that was. That nothlits could strike us at any moment of their choosing, without care or concern for what's happening before?

"Jen?" a familiar voice asked. I turned and saw Uncle Earl standing at the foot of the stairs to the PD. "Come on, let's go now," he said.

As I walked up to him, he threw an arm over my shoulder and said, "You know, Jen, if I was your age and I had gone through the same things that you've just gone through today then people would think that I've had a very tough time. I say that you need a nice, long break right now."

* * *

A/N: The next chapter is about to get really heavy. And I'm going to write a companion piece for that chapter that's probably just as heavy, if not even more heavy, sometime soon. Remember to follow me as an author to get updated on that companion piece. And like always, leave a review whether you like this or like me or not.


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